Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Episode 247 – Fondling Elephants

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 5m·analyzed·Mar 18, 2025
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Slam Tilt recaps successful Rochester Nationals tournament with results and logistics.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 247 covers the recently completed North American Championship Series and Pinmasters tournament hosted by Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC) in East Rochester, NY. Hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discuss tournament logistics, technical challenges (flipper replacements, display issues), player performances, and event success. The episode includes tournament results (Jason Zoller won NACS, Raymond Davidson won pin golf format), commentary on the golf format's potential for dramatic swings, and operational feedback for future events.

Key Claims

  • Rochester Pinball Collective successfully hosted the North American Championship Series and Pinmasters tournament with 58 players in Nationals and 88 in Pinmasters

    high confidence · Ron and Zach directly discuss player counts and tournament completion

  • Jason Zoller won the North American Championship Series, demonstrating a 'dominating performance'

    high confidence · Zach and Ron confirm Zoller as winner; describe performance as dominant

  • Raymond Davidson won the pin golf format finals and may have won two consecutive Stern Pro Circuit events (Pinmasters and Starfighters)

    high confidence · Ron states Davidson is 'first' in Stern Pro Circuit points by 60 points, fifth in WPPR ranking

  • RPC raised $1,500 for Project Pinball through the tournament

    high confidence · Bruce and Zach discuss donation amount and 'loot' collected

  • Flipper maintenance issues were systematic—newly rebuilt flippers on Spike 2 games failed within weeks after the tournament

    medium confidence · Bruce explains flipper coil stops 'go crap-o' from heavy use; notes rebuilt flippers become problems 'in about two weeks'

  • Taxi game display issues stemmed from a connector problem that required multiple repair attempts to resolve

    medium confidence · Bruce describes troubleshooting: touching fuse holder would restore power temporarily; ultimately diagnosed as a connector issue requiring pin re-crimping and sanding

Notable Quotes

  • “Out of 80 games there, and people using them for the tournaments for Project Pinball. Well, the game that died wasn't even a game in a tournament.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~13:30 — Highlights tournament setup success: minimal game failures despite heavy use

  • “If your tilt doesn't work, that is carte blanche to fuck up the game, basically.”

    Zach (Rochester Pinball Collective) @ ~26:00 — Community observation about player behavior when safety mechanisms fail—important for tournament operators

  • “He went from first, probably going to win, to tied for third and fourth. That's the part I don't like about it.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~31:00 — Commentary on golf format volatility—single poor shot can swing entire tournament outcome

  • “You can't have these in big cities anymore because people can't afford the rent in big cities. Or hotel. Or parking.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~43:00 — Tournament venue strategy: smaller cities offer logistical/cost advantages despite perception of being 'out of the way'

  • “It took us so long to find a microphone that could just contain Bruce.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~50:00 — Humorous aside about streaming/commentary technical challenges and Bruce's volume

Entities

Rochester Pinball Collective (RPC)organizationJason ZollerpersonRaymond DavidsonpersonRon HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonZachpersonJosh SharppersonColin McAlpineperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: RPC positioned as viable future host for Worlds tournament; IFPA provided suggestions for scaling improvements (chair capacity, early game prep); hosts planning incremental enhancements

    medium · Josh Sharp provided suggestions; hosts express interest in hosting Worlds and discuss specific improvements needed for larger event

  • ?

    event_signal: North American Championship Series and Pinmasters tournament successfully executed at RPC with 58 NACS players and 88 Pinmasters players; strong community participation and positive feedback on venue/organization

    high · Ron and Zach discuss player counts, tournament completion, and receiving compliments about venue and smooth operation

  • ?

    community_signal: Project Pinball charity raised $1,500 through tournament fundraising; however, donated machines experienced severe damage from players who assumed tilt malfunction meant games were safe to abuse

    high · Bruce and Zach discuss damage to donated games, noting glass frame destruction from excessive shaking; acknowledge lesson learned about tilt mechanism importance

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pin golf format (target score/stroke format) demonstrated high volatility—Jason Zoller went from 2-stroke lead to tied for third/fourth place after single difficult hole (Demoman), illustrating format's sudden-death swings

    high · Ron describes Zoller's dramatic collapse on Demoman and notes this volatility is both appealing to spectators and frustrating to competitors

  • ?

    event_signal: Streaming coverage by Backhand Pinball was comprehensive (15+ hours daily) with minimal technical failures; required two-wall signal transmission with only one noted camera dropout

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.377

0:00
This is our most advanced VR glasses yet, with almost no latency. Try them on, and you truly feel like you're going inside the video game. Whoa. Did you hear that, Beavis? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, feel like you're going inside.
0:17
Uh, no, dumbass. He said those glasses make you feel like you're going inside a video game. Let's try them, Beavis. I've always wanted to, like, go inside a video game and eat some coins and kick Luigi in the nabs. Yeah, that would be cool.
0:44
Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Phil Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Oh, I'm so fucked. Fucking tired, yeah, and I'm so fucking tired here, here. I don't even know what song you're supposed to be parodying. I do. Oh, who is that? That's our third host. Hi, Zach. Hello, Ron. So what's he saying? Wow, I don't get a hello then. What's he saying? I don't actually know the song name, but I know the song. I would walk 500 miles and I would walk 500. Okay. Yeah. Do you come up with that on the fly, Bruce, or do you have that ready? I have that ready. And this is episode 247. And we're as organized as always, as you can hear. As you can always tell. Yes. Me and Bruce are very organized because we don't have any plans. It's just our plans that are a problem. Yeah, you ruin our fun. You make a plan. Bruce, you were the one who sent the thing to say that we're recording this Saturday at 9. No, that's a meeting. You make plans behind the scenes. I make plans behind the scenes. Zach, am I right? He just gave us a whole itinerary of human stories. Exactly. That's a plan? It's just a show outline. That's not a plan. You were pre-spoiling all the info to us. And it's Riesling. You were the whole show for yourself. Pre-spoiling. Huh.
2:09
Luke Nahorniakperson
Project Pinballorganization
Backhand Pinballorganization
IFPAorganization
Stern Pro Circuitevent/series
Silver Ball Chroniclesorganization/podcast
Triple Drainorganization
The Pinball Network (TPN)organization

high · Hosts praise Backhand Pinball's effort and note single problem area near Monopoly game despite challenging transmission setup

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Raymond Davidson demonstrating exceptional tournament performance trajectory; won back-to-back Stern Pro Circuit events (Pinmasters and Starfighters per Ron's verification); leading Pro Circuit standings by 60 points; fifth in WPPR

    high · Ron confirms Davidson's consecutive circuit wins and current standings leadership; notes historical success at Texas venues

  • ?

    product_concern: Taxi game display connector issues recurred despite prior repair 6 months earlier; required multiple troubleshooting attempts and ultimately pin re-crimping/sanding to resolve

    medium · Bruce describes connector failure symptoms and multiple failed repair attempts before identifying root cause

  • ?

    product_concern: Systematic flipper failures on Spike 2 games: newly rebuilt flippers failed within weeks, suggesting underlying mechanical or coil wear issues

    medium · Bruce notes flipper coil stops 'go crap-o' from heavy use; flippers rebuilt for tournament become problematic within 2 weeks; pattern repeated across multiple games

    • I haven't heard that pre yet, so that's good. Pre-spoilers. Bruce-isms are running wild already. Uh-huh. Well, before we get started, I just want to say my Facebook is working again. Book in the face. Remember from the last episode? Yeah, I was locked out of my Facebook somehow.
    2:27
    And I'm now not. Shout out to Steve Daniels. He put me along the right path somehow. If you remember from our previous episode, basically, I didn't even know why I wasn't working. Like, I would log into Facebook, and then it would just hang.
    2:44
    And the only place it even told me I was locked was on my phone, on the browser on my phone. Not even the app. The app would do the same thing, log in and hang.
    2:54
    So one of Steve's suggestions was just to try the mobile link on my PC instead of the regular link, which makes no sense because it just forwards you to the regular link anyway. But I tried that, the mobile Facebook link, which is just like m.facebook, et cetera. And it forwarded me to regular Facebook, so like whatever. But when I went to log in, this time it gave me the blurb saying, you are locked. Like, ooh, now am I going to be in a unlock loop like on my phone? No, it actually worked. It let me unlock my account, and boom, I was back in. So why was your account locked? That I don't know. It basically said it detected activity, blah, blah, blah. Oh, it thinks someone hacked you. Yeah, basically it thought someone hacked me. So it wasn't because of your, like, rapid racism and narcissism? What? Yes. I totally agree. You see how he always spins it against me, and it's really him.
    3:56
    Yeah, he's obviously the problematic one here. Yep. Yes, all my extremely racist posts, like, the latest episode of Slamtail Podcast is ready. That's about it. Oh, wait a minute. That's not true. I do do other posts that say, happy birthday.
    4:10
    To who, though? The Ku Klux Klan? No. The Ku Klux Klan. Why are we going this direction for? You know how insulting somebody's birthdays sometimes are? You know, if you hit 50, that's like, oh. That's ageism. Yeah. I've never happy birthdayed anyone who didn't already have happy birthdays on their page. You're just piling on then. I'm just piling on. So I put them over the edge. You're putting a problem on the internet. Yes.
    4:37
    I really don't want to record now. You guys all suck. We do. I do all this work and I take nothing but shit. I literally don't post anything on Facebook. It's somehow I get locked out.
    4:51
    It's great because it's so ironic. It really is. I am anti-Internet, anti-this, anti-this, and who's the only one that gets locked out? Ron. Oh, you don't even want me to start going into my upgrading to Windows 11 stuff. Oh, Windows 11's awesome. I have it on my main PC. That actually was very smooth, and I've had no issues whatsoever. The streaming PC, on the other hand, I don't even want to get into. Don't even want to get into that.
    5:22
    Okay. So what are we going to talk about here? Well, let's just start off. We're going to talk about Triple Drain being off the TPN network because that's. What? Isn't that independent? Yeah. I don't know. That's what it sounded like. What are you talking about? On their posts. Okay. Postings. Yes, they post things, unlike Ron. Okay. I was like what that's like your first thing okay yeah that's my first thing because Triple Drain's like hey support the new thing because I guess they're doing video they've been doing video I know I think what they're doing is they're taking all their episodes off of the TPN feed and they have their own YouTube feed now that's where they're going to be putting the stuff ooh congratulations I believe that is the deal I believe Ron can fly I believe he can touch You know what's on TPN? Silver Ball Chronicles. Let's get that shit show out of the way. The history podcast by me and my main host, David Dennis. And it's about pinball history. Check out our latest episode, which was about barrels of fun. The thing that just exists for like two years? Yeah. You already did a video on it? Yes. That's not even like history. That's like post-history. Yeah, that's like... Thank you for your support. And now, listeners, buckle in for an hour of Silver Ball Crackles free content. Sponsored by Ron Hallett. Yes.
    6:46
    Okay. So the reason we have Zach on here, Zach and Bruce, you are members, you are owners of the Rochester Pinball Collective, RPC, and you just had a major event there that people should already know what it is because we've been plugging it for fucking weeks on the show. But the Pinmasters and the Nationals occurred last weekend.
    7:08
    How'd it go? The North American Championship Series. Yes, the North American Championship. And we'll talk first about the prep. We were there probably four or five days beforehand replacing as much as we could. Just replacing games because they sucked or what? Oh, yeah, we got rid of Firewall Classic completely. Oh, well, I'm not going to argue there. That should not be in the tournament. Oh, it would be great for that. Actually, it wasn't the pre-tournament, sadly. I would love to see it, but for fairness purposes, I don't think that should be there. Yeah. And now it's fixed. Nope, fixed now. But, yeah, we were there replacing all the flippers on the Spike 2 games since they usually suck because they get flipped so much, and then the coil stops go crap-o. But we rebuilt a lot of flippers. What else did we do? A lot of light bulbs. Yeah, a lot of sockets. A lot of sockets. Lots of squeezing of the sockets. like squeezing your Charmin.
    8:06
    And we thought we were kind of ready for Wednesday. Were we, Ron? Were we, Zach? I don't know. I wasn't there Wednesday. Well, actually, our Fireball comment was like a big harbinger of things to come, apparently. Yeah.
    8:21
    Yeah, a lot of little issues that kept on nagging throughout the whole tournament. Do you want to explain the Fireball issue? Well, not even that. this, like, taxi. Our taxi displays. We thought we had fixed. It hadn't given us a problem for about six months. And all of a sudden,
    8:40
    it came back in spades. And we finally figured out it was probably the connector again. The one we fixed. Yeah. Which you probably should have suspected first, but... Yeah.
    8:51
    Can't trust Bruce to repent of connector, apparently. Yeah, that's gotta be it. You just played with the prongs. That's all you did. You didn't reconnect them all. No, I squeezed the pins where they crimp on. Oh. The pliers. And I sanded the pins, but one of those two seemed to be what actually fixed it. Yeah. After like the sixth try. Yeah. Everything else we could possibly think of. The display, we kept on going out, so we would lose one of the voltages. And we thought it was first the fuse holder, because as soon as we touch, literally, you could touch the fuse holder and the thing would come back on live. You're like, oh, it's got to be the fuse holder.
    9:24
    Nope. It's got to be this. Nope. Then Zach directly hardwires the fuse holder to the connector. Nope.
    9:32
    So that's the kind of stuff we dealt with. But only one game died, so out of 80 games there, and people using them for the tournaments for Project Pinball. Well, the game that died wasn't even a game in a tournament. Yeah, we stole a board out of another game. But I feel like if you count Black Rose dying as a thing that died, and you should also count the fact that High Hand's flipper was falling off and we had to stop using it. Well, yeah, that's true. But that was only in one game. It was only in a pre-tournament. We didn't have time to go. Well, Blackwood, even the pre-tournament had died. I know. It was a whole weekend. Pre-tournament?
    10:13
    We love pre. You know, Ron hates pre. Why do you hate the pre-cycle? You just go right into the wash, right? Pre is like the most overused thing now. Ron just puts his food straight in the oven without turning it on first and just lets it warm up fresh the way God intended.
    10:35
    But, yeah, we had a lot of flipper issues, which I don't understand why. We put mechs new in what's called a... To be fair, I feel like the stuff we rebuilt was usually not the problem. Yeah, it usually wasn't the problem. But the stuff that we rebuilt like a month earlier was the problem. Yes. And the stuff that we rebuilt for National is probably a problem in about two weeks. Yeah, probably. Yeah. But other than that, no games died, died completely, which is good.
    11:03
    We had a lot of loose posts, a lot of... I like how we're talking about all tech things. Like, nothing... Yeah, because that's the actual tournament. We're going to actually go into that next. What? We're talking about... They have a stream. Yeah. The biggest problem the whole weekend was just stuff ripping out of wood. Yes. and just vibrations. So this is a call to Sarah. You need to find a new alternative to wood. Yes. Wood was a problem, especially wooden chairs. Yeah, wooden chairs. Don't use wooden chairs when you do a stream. That's going to be... Yeah, exactly. Use metal chairs. I will say a lot of good things were we had the spare room for the streaming and waiting area. And trap chairs. But it worked out really well. People enjoyed that side of it. And the good thing is you didn't have to hear the stream when you were playing a game. Yeah. Which I always find annoying.
    11:59
    Mm-hmm. A lot of other good things we had. A lot of compliments about the place itself, of course, and how everything ran pretty smooth. That place, that Rochester Pinball Collective, where is that? I don't know. Zach, where is that? East Rochester, New York. What's the address? How are they going to get there?
    12:18
    They're going to go to Google Maps and type in Rochester. Jesus Christ. 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester, New York. Suite 2965 from the guy that doesn't even own part of it. I don't own shit. I know. Our baby investor. You do own stuff. You are like the silent six partner. The silent? No. I have a rig, which wasn't used. And you have the computer. And he's not silent. No, I'm not silent. He gets his own podcast. That's true. But I think it went pretty well. I think everyone was happy. What do you guys think? What would you like to change, Zach or Ron? Nothing blew up. Except Black Rose. Were there any yellow cards or red cards or fights breaking out? No, nothing like that. Didn't seem like anyone was overly pissed. Normal number of F-bombs, I heard. Nothing out of the ordinary. I have to thank IFPA for letting us take a chance on us. and, you know, let me... Take a chance on me. Take a chance. See, Abba, I'm bringing it back to pinball. See? And we, I thought, did really well. Did you knock it out of the park, Bruce? I thought we did. It wasn't... No, we got it in the park home run. We didn't knock it out. It went inside the park home run. Inside the park home run. It was exciting the whole way through. Too many flippers broken for an out-of-the-park home run. Yeah, exactly. But we know what we need to do next time. a little earlier, start getting more stuff prepped up. More space for people to sit at would be a great thing. Actually, I feel like we didn't even use up all the chairs we had usually. No, some parts. Like when it was the finals, it was there. But, you know, the people who played, everybody, it was incredible. Between the 58 players for Nationals and 88 players for Pinmasters. So, C-Ron, you're complaining about it. I wasn't complaining. I was just saying, all these people are just donating their money to one of, like, five or ten people, which is exactly what they did. It wasn't just donating money. It was also getting reasons to hate ourselves. Yeah. We sucked at them all. Except for I was the best one out of the North America area.
    14:26
    Retiring Bruce Nightingale. Retired Bruce Nightingale. No, I was not retired. Remember? I came back, and I never said I was retired again. Yes, you did. You said you retired several times. Stop it. No, I said, yeah, but I came back for the Metallica one. He's like the guy from Kiss, Ron. Yeah, you're like Kiss. He's in between final tours. Exactly. This is my 12th tour.
    14:46
    But I did not play in it. Yes, Stu McVicker did. Stu McVicker played in it, and he sucked. He sucked. He got a 10 on one of the holes, like the max score. I got two hole-in-ones, and I got three nines, or four nines. Yeah, Stu did not get any hole-in-ones. He got a two on Iron Maiden, which from everything I heard was the big accomplishment that he did. Yeah. Zach, how did you do? I would have had a hole-in-one if my own game didn't betray me and malfunctioned on the jackpot shot. Oh, I love it. It's his own game, so he can't go off on it. With a malfunction I've never even seen before. Uh-huh. Yeah. So what did you get? What was your final score? I don't actually know. You don't actually know. I got an 88.
    15:30
    Yeah, Stu had a 57, and at least he improved to 51 the next day. So he got better instead of worse. I did better on the harder side, supposedly, because everyone said the harder side was the west side. Back nine. Yeah, the back nine, the west side of the building. And I did great on that. I did a 41. I was really happy with what I was doing. Yeah, you were actually, like, happy while playing pinball. It was strange. Yeah. What a novel idea, huh? So I figured, like, you must be doing decent because he hasn't been pissed yet. No, the thing is, this is the reason why I was kind of happy. besides playing, I was actually not being bothered all the time because we had a lot of support. Uh-huh. What an awful idea. See, the thing is, we were all taking bets, like what hole you would quit on. And you all lost. We all lost, yeah. We were like, okay, how many holes until he quits?
    16:22
    But you didn't. Nope. Which means we know you played good because otherwise you would have quit. No, I didn't have to be bothered every 10 seconds. Oh, hey, look at this guy. Look at this. So what I'm hearing is if you're never bothered, you should just dominate. Yes. Okay. Which I did. He's going to make states next year. Yeah. Maybe you should go to shows, you know, where you're just a spectator. Maybe you will never be bothered. I got too many cruises. Too many cruises. Okay. And guess what? I'm going to a show. I'm going to the Beast and working as a tech. So what does that tell you? I'll be bothered. Yep.
    16:54
    Uh-huh. But overall, I think it went really well. I have to thank the Sharps. I'd like to thank Backhand Pinball. Oh, yeah. Backhand pinball, they are like 15 hours straight per day. Yeah, he was incredible. And he's sitting there like updating each ball. Like, practice, ball one, ball two. I'm like, God damn, that's got to suck. Yeah, you see what you need to do, Ron? Yeah, exactly. That's why I had no desire to do it whatsoever. Because I know what's involved, and it's like no air. This is what we demand for Stomp 7. Yeah, Stomp 7 is going to need it because it's going to be you and me not playing. He's using the same equipment, so I have a little more confidence now that when I install that third schoon or whatever the hell it is, that we might finally have full coverage where it won't cut on any camera. That would be awesome. He had one little problem back by Monopoly. I saw it once in a while. Yeah, but he's going through like two walls. Two concrete walls. If it was three or four walls, it would have been fine. Yeah, exactly. But, no, I think he did a great job.
    17:56
    I'd like to congratulate the winner of Nationals. Oh, don't, before we do that, don't forget Project Pinball. Oh, Project, we already talked about them a little bit, but we can go into it deeper. They earned up to, they earned $1,500, right? Yes. That was the take home?
    18:13
    Yes, they had all this loot. And Luke Nahorniak wanted to make sure he won as much of it as possible. Jesus Christ. Holy cow, he wanted this stuff. I want that banner. I want this. I want that. Yeah. He got it. But I'm glad we helped out, you know, Project Pinball for that, definitely. It was a good thing. I didn't know we were going to give them 10 games, Zach.
    18:35
    Well, we just didn't want to take 20. Now we realize we wouldn't have 20, so. I know. I didn't want to give them five in some ways because it felt like they were just always. We didn't touch the games that we said we were going to give them because we thought, ah, they'll last because they're not going to be totally beaten. They were actually hammered sometimes harder than the tournament games. Well, I learned things. Now, if you have a tournament and your tilt doesn't work on something, the players will break your game. Oh, yeah. Literally. They fucked up doggies, doggies, whatever. They figured the tilt wasn't working at all, so that thing got walked out the fucking row. The actual glass frame for the glass fell apart.
    19:14
    Yeah. That's how much they shook it. Yeah. That's my issue with the tournament types. Yeah, and I have that same problem because guess what? If I went to their house and did that, they'd be like, huh? It's like if your tilt doesn't work, that is carte blanche to fuck up the game, basically. Yeah, I know.
    19:30
    Sorry, bringing it down there. Let's get positive again. Yes. So who won, oh, sorry, not Nationals. The North American Championships Series. There you go, Zach. Who won that?
    19:41
    Do you not know? Oh, I was waiting for Bruce to answer. No, I was waiting. He said Zach. No, I was saying, because Zach corrected me earlier when I called it Nationals. Exactly. He wasn't asking me for the answer. Yes, he did. Zach, who was the... Okay, Jason Zoller won. Yes, Jason Zoller won. Congratulations to Jason, yes. Good God. He dominated. He played really well. Yes, that was a dominating performance. Yeah, he was El Fuego. It was nice to see him raise that thing, the championship. And we had a lot of TV coverage there, too. So everyone was interviewed that we can get on there. Except Zach, because he refuses to be interviewed. He refuses. But we had the Sharps on one set. Bowen was on another set. Some of the national players were coming on during each break. They had like five breaks in the morning.
    20:29
    I was thankful for everyone who came out early, too. They got to have some coffee and donuts. And that was a great day.
    20:36
    So that was day one. That was day one. Day one. Day two. Yeah, so the Pin Masters format is it's the first day. you play nine holes. There's a morning session and afternoon session. Same thing on the second day. Morning session and afternoon session. But then they squeeze in one round of finals on the second day and then Sunday you finish the finals. No, Saturday they also did the novice finals too. Oh yeah. Who won the novice finals? I forget who his name was but he dominated. He was four under after four games. Poor novice finals. We don't even know who won. Fail. Yep, fail. I played against them, and I failed. I was second in that. Wait a minute. You were in novice finals? Yes, I was. How are you a novice in any way, shape, or form? What's my IFBA ranking? It's my IFBA ranking, and I am ranked 2,000 in the world, and you have to be. Oh, Jesus. So guess what, chief? Yeah, okay. Novice. Yeah, you're a novice, all right. Yep, novice. Yeah.
    21:42
    All right. Wow, I really brought Ron down on that one. So then Sunday we had the rest of the finals. Yes.
    21:50
    And it ended up being, it was a hell of a final. It was a hell of a final. Wow. The format, and we'll do this briefly because we know a lot of you all don't like tournaments. But the golf format, you want to get the target score and the lowest number of balls on every game you play. That's your stroke. At the simplest score. So they'll have like a target score, I don't know, pick a game. Demoman. Okay, the target score was, what was it, 500 million? 500 million. So if you get it in ball one, hole in one. Hole one. They were considering, I think, a four par. Yes. So they had all the games were on five ball. And if you don't get it at all, then they have a breakdown. Like, so if you were between, I don't know, 400 million and 499 million, you get a six, then you're lower than that, a seven, eight, all the way up to you've just completely shit the bed, you get a ten. Yeah. So it's a format that makes it so it'll look like someone is in the lead and they got it in the bag, and then they can have one hole that just fucks everything up. Mm-hmm. And that's pretty much what happened. That's exactly what happened on Demoman.
    22:57
    After, what was it, three games? Three games. It looked like Jason Zahler was going to win again. Jason had a two-stroke lead. Basically, just had the $500 million on Demoman for him didn't seem like it would be. And he picked all the games. Yeah, and he picked all the games. It didn't seem like that would be difficult, but he had major issues on Demoman and went from first, probably going to win, to tied for third and fourth. Tied for third. Yeah, and having a playoff. It was like, wow. That's the part I don't like about it. Well, I do and don't. I do to watch it as a spectator, don't to play in it. Yeah. Like, I think I got it in the bag. I'm killing it. oh, one bad hole and I just fucked everything up. Everything up. I mean, that's not all pin golf, though. That's the Josh Sharp format. At RPC, you know, we just do like one, two, three, four, five, six. You don't get a ten. Yeah, you don't get a ten, yeah. So you can't get as completely. But guess what? He still would have lost even with the six.
    23:59
    Oh, yeah. So the way I look at it is it's still the same, you know, still the same loss. But he played excellent. He was dominating throughout the hole. He was the top seed for the pin goal. Well, who won that?
    24:14
    Raymond Davidson. I believe that is his third consecutive tournament he's played in that he's won. Nice. Well, unless he's played some small on the side, but as far as big tournament skill, yeah. Yeah. That should help his, because that tournament was a, what's it called, a stern pro circuit. Is it a pro circuit? Well, it's some kind of super thing because the Sharps are running it, so you know it's going to be the highest whatever value. Does that mean he's won two pro circuits in a row? He might have. Was it Starfighters was the other one? I think that was on the circuit this year. Wow. Let's see. Damn. Okay. Let's see. I'm going right to it now. Damn it. He's keeping it real for all us old people, i.e. anyone over 30. Starfighters was it, so he won two in a row.
    25:00
    Wow. Yep. Impressive. What's the next one? Is he going to that one? If he's going to Texas, he can take a three-peat.
    25:08
    And he's won Texas multiple times, too, hasn't he? Yes, he has. Yes. Well, I know he won at least once because I saw him on one of the banners last time I was there. All right. So we'd say everything went pretty good? Yeah, always very happy. We told Josh and Zach Sharp that, hey, we're up for worlds.
    25:31
    And they gave us some suggestions. So hopefully we'll get a chance at that. I heard a couple complaints about, you know, Rochester. Here's the funny thing. Everyone's like, oh, Rochester's out of the way, and it was kind of a some of the flights really sucked. And they did. Guess what? That wasn't our fault. At least it wasn't snowing where we were. It was literally 50 degrees and nice. No, it did snow. It did snow. It 100% snowed. That's not snow in my book. I mean, our airport was open. I was in front of Zach's house after the first day I had snow on my car. The second day I had even more snow on my car.
    26:06
    Well, Zach's house is up by the lake. And then the third day, all the snow on the car was gone. So I don't know what happened. It must have got warmer. It got warmer. But at least it wasn't our side that had the snow issues and the weather issues. It wasn't your side. It wasn't. It was actually the Midwest. They had a lot of storms coming through the Midwest because poor somebody there, Colin McAlpine, and had to fly from Austin to LAX to Chicago to Rochester. Wow. Yeah, that sucks for him. He was second, actually, in the pin master. He did a great job. But, yeah, the way I look at it is, and I'm going to say this to everybody, yeah, you know, Rochester's a little bit out of the way, but you can't have these in big cities anymore because people can't afford the rent in big cities. Or hotel. Or parking. That's what I was thinking. Or parking. Exactly. We had free parking. We had a lot of food around us. We had plenty of bathrooms, Timmy. And they all ran out of toilet paper. So we actually luckily have spare toilet paper, so we're always prepared for that. I bet you could have went on one of the other floors and used one of the other bathrooms. You could have, but that's a different code. Yeah, it's one off than the previous code. Yes. It's 349 West Commercial Street, folks. So the codes are 3491 for the first floor bathrooms, 3492, 3493. Get it? Really complicated, yeah. Especially since I noticed some of the bathrooms just had the code right outside. Yeah, I made that. Here's the code. Oh, you did that. Yes, I did that. I think you're not supposed to do that, Bruce. Yeah, I think you're not supposed to do that, but yeah, I don't give a shit. He's Bruce. I'm Bruce. But at least we didn't have people asking us the whole day, hey, what's going on? What's the thing? No, it's right there outside the door. If you can't read it, that's your fault. We had chairs in the other room. We had the ones that survived. The ones that survived, yes. Unfortunately, Steve Bowden and Dalton had chair difficulties. I thought they were wrestling. I thought they were using the chairs. Oh, you were using the chairs?
    28:12
    They were pounding the chairs. We learned that Bruce has the loudest voice ever. Yes. Because whenever Bruce would join the announcer's booth, just with his normal volume, it would just blow out everyone's headset, and they'd have to put it down. Yes. It took us so long to find a microphone that could just contain Bruce. Contain me. So, Raymond is ahead on number one in the stern points for the pro circuit. He is fifth. Overall, fifth whopper ranking for the world, and first in that by 60 points. easily.
    28:46
    Colin Calpine is eighth after that. So people will fall asleep. Anything else for RPC? Before they turn us back off. I'm happy. Are you happy, Zach?
    28:58
    I'm sure you're upset of all the settings they put on your games. Oh, God. Most of that was fine. I proved them wrong. Really? Okay. I proved Zach wrong. That's impossible. I did. Zach is never wrong. We know this. Zach? Tell him. I don't know which Exactly. Yeah. Taxi?
    29:17
    Airport rides? Well, see, he doesn't want to admit to it. Yes, he said that airport rides cannot have... It was broken. Someone was broken with the stuff because they played... And then someone said, no, they're disabled. I'm like, there's no setting for that. And I said, yes, there is a setting. And he went through the settings, and there was a setting where you actually have to do two airport rides in a row for it to count. Not disabled, but yeah. Again, he's not going to admit he's wrong. Yeah, I know. He's not going to admit there wasn't a setting. He's like, no, you said disabled, and that's not what it was. Yes. So you're still wrong, Bruce. You're still wrong, Bruce. Yes. So you're both wrong. I mean, Bruce might have been right about what he was saying. One said there was no setting, and the other one's. I know. I cannot win. You can't win. Not at all. This is what we deal with all the time, folks. We would love to have them back for anything they want to do there again. Worlds or another Nationals. Maybe we'll be bigger. Who knows? We'll see what happens, but I think we can definitely do it. And we have a game plan now. You have a Cyclops? I wish. You said you had a game plan. No, we have no game plans. Oh, that's a fail. Where's your game plan? I don't get a game plan. I get a Cyclops. Who wants to trade me a Cyclops? Nothing else. Yeah, nothing else? I have Cheetah. Come on, trade me Cheetah. I got Cheetah bait.
    30:41
    Cheat a bait. We have many classic sterns to choose from. Yes, cheat a bait. I got Free Fall. I got, oh, I saw Frontier was up for sale from a couple people. I'm like, hey, you want to trade? Wait a minute. I thought you hate Frontier. I do, but I need to beat it. You need to beat it. I need to beat it. I don't mind Frontier either. I might do it at $4,000. Yeah, I do too. Yeah. But if I can trade a game, then it's like nothing. Then it's even. Bruce is like, I don't remember paying the money for that previous game. It's free now. No, because, honestly, the way I look at it is I paid for what I paid for in front of the beginning. So I worked my way up, and guess what?
    31:17
    You know what the funny thing is to me? What does the winner of Pinmasters get Pinmasters gets a brand pinball machine A new Stern Pro Who won it Raymond Davidson The Stern employee wins the brand new Stern Pro Yeah.
    31:34
    Poor Ray. Maybe he can upgrade to a premium or an LE. Maybe. But, yeah, I got a lot of trade bait. We need a Cyclops. What else do we need in place? What other game plan? We haven't pimped the list for a while. You have balls of poppin'. I know, we haven't. Balls of poppin' I love to have. Balls of poppin'. Mmm, balls.
    31:56
    I want a Stellar Wars now. What? I want a Robo Wars, so we need both wars. Wait a minute, you want a Stellar Wars? He does. The Steve Ritchie classic? Yes, yes. He would like a nice one. I was playing at Starfighters, and theirs played really good. So it was really good when you did a full plunge and it came all the way around and just rained down the middle? Oh, it didn't do that. Don't do that, yeah.
    32:20
    But yeah, like, for a Williams of that era, you know, like, they're usually, like, sort of dead. It was just very snappy, bouncy, lively.
    32:27
    Like, if I could get one that plays like this, I would like it. And that's something that Williams asked Steve Ritchie to do, because they figured he'd be good at it. Because all his games at Atari were wide bodies. Because that's when everyone was doing the wide body craze, and it's like, okay, we need to have a wide body. Hey, Steve, you did two of those at Atari. You know how to do wide bodies, right? Speaking of wide bodies, part of the reason Stellar Wars is so fun is the Outland felt a lot like Future Spa.
    32:52
    We do need a Future Spa also. We still need a Future Spa, but Robo Wars, Future Spa, Stellar Wars, Balls of Poppin', Cyclopses, what else we got? Jeez. Where are you putting all these games? We just trade. Trade, okay. Trade, trade. Trade, trade, trade. I've got room in the basement still. Yeah, I've got room in the basement too. So thank you for everyone who came out And thank you for helping us out So my notes here say Plug Stomp What's Stomp? It's the tournament that we run It's named after us It is named after us It's the Slam Hill Oh My Pinball Tournament And there's two versions of it The one that takes place at RPC And the one that takes place at a level 0 And this one's at the RPC Yes, when? Hold on, I'm getting to it Because I don't have it on my You don't have your notes. You're not the best one. We do a pre-tournament on the 5th, but it's 6th, 7th, and 8th of June. And it's $135. It gets you into the RPC. It pays for all the trophies. It pays for the IFPA fees. Belt. And the belt. You get to win a belt. We need to find a new thing, Bruce, because multiple other tournaments have copied the belt now. I know they have. Yeah, but we're first, so it doesn't matter. That's all that matters. We keep the belt going. Actually, they do have a new thing now. You can put a chain on the belt, and it's like a big trophy around your neck. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, can we get, like, just, like, a giant foot-wide metal made? No, no, no, no, no. It's actually the belt, but they put it on chains, so it has two holes in it. And you actually carry it around like it's your, uh... Wouldn't that be pretty friggin' heavy? Oh, it's friggin' six pounds of heavy. Yeah, why would you have that around your neck? That would be stupid. It's awesome, because it throws off somebody's neck, like yours. And you might snap yours. We need to make sure to add a rule that says that the winner of last year has to wear the belt next year. Yes. All tournament. As soon as they get in, because when do tickets go on sale? They go on sale today, which is 3-15-2025, which is March 15th at 6 p.m. ET. March 15th, so not today. It is today. Is it? Today is March 15th. Wait a minute, it goes on sale today already? Yes. Aren't we supposed to announce this like before it goes on sale? Well, doesn't this defeat the purpose? We've been announcing it for all this time. Oh, we have? And now we're announcing it on the podcast. It's a last-minute ditch effort to finally get people to sign up. It's under Slam Tilt, under Events. Slam Tilt Podcast. On Facebook, yes. Under Events on Facebook.
    35:20
    135-Pay-To-Wizard-Mode at Yahoo.com. Do you advertise this on the actual Rochester Pinball Collective website? Yes, I've plugged it on all the websites, Ron. You don't just do Facebook. That's the problem. You just got back on. You're afraid of typing anything on Facebook. I'm saying for people who don't do Facebook, are there other places where this would be listed?
    35:41
    It will be in our mailing list at some point, yeah. Yes, it will be. Yeah, but you guys have an actual website.
    35:47
    No one goes to that. Yeah, no one goes to that. Okay, so you're not updating that. Okay, that's – It will be on there, yeah. It will be on there eventually, yes. Eventually. After they already sell out, yes. Yes. No. So the key – there's a couple keys here for you guys. So if you're going to go to Stomp, first, whoever plays and pays is in to win a chance at a Pinberg entry. So if you play and pay. You don't have to win. You don't have to win anything. No, you don't win anything. You're just in the entries. You're in the drawing. And you get a chance to get an entry into Pinberg. Courtesy of the Rochester Pinball Collective and Stomp. The second thing is, if you pay between March 15th and May 15th, you get a chance in another drawing to win your money back. You get to play for free. So if you pay between March 15th and May 15th, you're in the drawing, and one person will be picked, and right then and there, we're going to pay you cash back for your payment. Well, not right there, because it'll be virtual at the time. Well, no, we're going to do it online, and I'm going to hand the guy right there cash. You're going to do it online, and you'll pay it in cash? Well, no, I'm going to do it right there online at the computer, pulling up the thing. And as soon as they put a name up, you know, in the list thing, you know, we'll do random. So we're going to wait until stop to give them their money back. Yes, exactly, yes. So we can make interest on it in the bank in between. Yeah, no, it won't be interest on it. We don't make any interest in PayPal.
    37:18
    So, but you'll get it right then and there back in your hands. Also, we're going to be giving away some translights and banners and maybe some entries to RPC and that kind of stuff. So swag. Swag. And I think we have the loser package also, the last place person. What do you think, Zach? I think we're doing this. I picture the loser package like a thing you can buy separately. Yeah, I'm just thinking like loser package. If you are last place in Stomp, I'm saying it right now. last place you get a goodie bag oh and it's not the kind that has a turd in it you put on some unfortunate you light it although bruce can supply that too if you really want that i can do it i have a turd thing i could bring well we have a turd thing also okay but we're keeping it silent but if you get last silent turd okay got silent but deadly turd it's real swag it is real swag and it's pinball swag. Last place. You will see it and get it that day. We're also going to have a women's tournament. Is it going to be like a deep root hat or something? Don't know yet. Okay. Do they even make those? I've seen them. So, Zach, since we have you here, you can go over all the tournaments. Oh, no. People are definitely turning off. First, there's a bonus pre-tournament. Oh, I love pre-tournaments. It's a pre to the pre? No, but we can do that too if people want. If you really want to, you can do it. Why don't you say pre-pre? Pre-pre! Yeah, Wednesday pre-tournament. No, Thursday. Thursday pre-tournament. Separate entry costs, not stomp. It's just, it's there if you want even more pinball on your weekend to get some practice up. Then Friday, we start immediately for women with bonus women qualifying starting at noon. Noon, yes. Noon on Friday. Yes. So we'll get some women-only hours of qualifying in because women's this time is going to be a hybrid best game. Not a frenzy. So you can play and qualify all weekend. And then starting around 5 or 6, I think. I think it's 5. I think the first half of Stomp may be qualifying.
    39:27
    Get that out of the way early. Saturday morning, bright and early. Classics, match-match play, frenzy. Starting really early so Rabin can't play in it.
    39:38
    Wow. One more chance to win. Then some more time for women's qualifying. And then we'll do the second half of Stomp. in the afternoon,
    39:47
    dinner break, first round of Stomp finals right on Saturday evening. We get the non-buys out of the way. Yep. And at the same time as that, we'll also start consolation herb qualifying for anyone that didn't make finals. They can go and pump and dump to their heart's content.
    40:05
    And then Sunday it'll just be finals, finals, finals, finals. Yep. And also the giveaway, the last place, is only for Stomp, not for Main Stomp. Main Stomp only. Yes. I just want to reiterate that.
    40:19
    Yep, so we got Stomp Main, Mega Match Play, Certified, 253% Whoppers, whatever the number is. So much Whoppers. So much Whoppers. So much fun. Ron, you don't have to worry about it. You're not playing in it, neither am I. In the morning, we have finals the next day in the morning. Just tailor-made for Ron Hallett to win. It is. Classics are your bread and butter. But Ron doesn't play in this, though. I know he doesn't. Neither does Bruce.
    40:44
    We'll try to tempt him. We'll get him. Consolation during all the other finals, February also playing, and women's hybrid all weekend. And if we have any sponsors out there that would like to give us some swag for free, where would they contact us, Ron, at?
    41:03
    Slamcellpodcast at gmail.com. Cool. There you go. So contact me or Zach, and we'll take your donations and plug you all throughout the weekend. Anyone listening right now is like, what is this, just an advertisement for RPC tournaments? Nope, it's just trying to get them out of the way. Yeah, we're trying to get them out of the way. It only takes an hour. Yeah, not even. Yeah, Ron will put a little time stamp in the description of when the tournament talk ends. It'll be right before the Stomp Talk starts. Just to get them going.
    41:30
    Okay, but I think that's it. But you pay starting at 6 o'clock tonight. Eastern Time. See, I said E.T. Yeah, very good. It was very accurate. Very accurate.
    41:42
    Is there a Mac sack? I think we're saying 80, maybe? Yeah, I think we're saying 80. A Mac sack. We're expanding. Yeah. Yeah, Mac. 80 pairs. I like some Mac. Mmm, mac and cheese. Ew. That would be great. Ugh, I hate it. Ugh. Okay, so Turn of the Talk is over. And Vaughn has eight hours to edit and release. Yes. Thanks for coming, everyone. Thanks for coming. So what is going on in the world of pinball? Well, you know what's going on tonight? The D-Jennys are tonight. Yes. I think we're going to show up for a few minutes. We might show up for a minute. I think a hot minute. A hot minute. It'll be very hot. Hot best minute. Tune in and see what happens to poor Billy P. Ball. Yeah. Whether he dies. Because I don't think they got that $5,000 to save him. But, Ron, I had a master plan. Yeah, you had a master plan that just failed terribly. But you'll see all that during the D-Dennys. I hope so. Which will be on Twitch, Facebook. Everything. What time does that start, guys? That's a good question. I just realized that. I don't know. I think it's like 8 o'clock or 7. It's not too late. Right after you sign up for Stomp. There you go. Perfect. Just double shot.
    42:57
    8 p.m. Eastern time. 8 p.m. You have an hour to sign up for Stomp, and then an hour to sign your friends up for Stomp, and then you can relax and watch the Ligienies. Yeah, we should have done a plug then for that, too. Like, you know, hey, don't forget it. Yeah.
    43:12
    All right. What do I have next here? Well, you know what's coming up this weekend, or next weekend? It's coming up. Texas Pinball Festival. More pinball for all. It's probably the second biggest show. Yeah, next to Expo after last year. So what do we think? Do we think anything's going to debut?
    43:35
    Any debuts at all? Define debut. New games coming out. No, like one that we haven't even heard of before? Is Barrels of Fun going to come out with their next game? This is where they came out with their first game, Labyrinth. I mean, it would make sense to do it there. It would make sense to do it there. It's been two years. I figure it's got to be ready.
    43:54
    Maybe. I don't know. I mean, and this is probably where Multimorphic's next game will show up, too. We're going to hear another game, so it should be there, I'm assuming. Multimorphic is going to be coming out with a new game. We'll get into that. Is that a debut? They already teased it now? I think they're teasing it, but that would be their big debut for first hands on. Yeah, they're announcing a debut event. Yeah, debut event. Yes. Well, maybe Wonderland Pinball will be there, too, then. Yeah. Okay. They just cashed in. Cash grab!
    44:24
    So anything else about CBF other than that? It's going to be, I think, really big. Who knows if we'll have any people doing some debuts. I don't think the big three are. So, you know, we know Spooky isn't. We know Stern isn't. And we know Jersey Jack isn't. So the big three, Spooky. It is true. To me, it's Stern, Spooky, and JJP are the big three. The big three. And then you have all the independents down below. Like the Studebakers and the Nash's and the. I mean, Spooky has been in a pace of like one game a year. And that's ahead of, that's still to this day. They're the second most professional company out there now. That is ahead of what Jersey Jack has done. Yes. Because they're at, like, I think 10 games in 13 years? No. Yes. About 12. I'd say 12. No, because their next game is supposed to be the 11th game.
    45:15
    And they started in 2011. So I'm just putting it out there. Isn't that 14 years? I'll start it at 2013, because that's the first day they got their game going. No, no, no. They started in 2011. The first game was in 2012, if you want to go there. Well, guess what? They're not as bad as Dutch, which have done one game in ten years.
    45:36
    But, man, they really knew how to make that one game. Yeah. They made it last a long time. A long time. One more time. Well, do you remember, while we were talking about Dutch, they started, well, DPX.
    45:55
    Dual Penetration Extreme. It's actually just pinball exclusive, but yes, they finally started making Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
    46:05
    So do we think they're going to get them all done? No. Yeah. Are you saying yes, Zach? I think they will. No. It might take 15 years. No, no, no, no, no, no. We're talking about this year. You have to get them done this year to get your money back. With the original date they said. Yes. Okay, that one, yeah, I'm not sure about. No. I just can't see it. I can't see him. Hey, you on the street, you want to help us build a game? When was the date? The end of the year. December 31st. January 31st. If you don't have your game by then, you get your money back. You get your deposit back. Deposit back. Yes. Plus interest. Well, do you remember, I don't know if we ever mentioned this, I think it's Hexapinball that does the Space Haunt thing. Jesus. They had this deal where if you paid whatever, you could actually go on the line and help build your own game. Oh, great. I'm thinking, like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Well, didn't Spooky do that one time, too? Why? Why do I want to help build my own game? Like, no. I think that's cool. I would do that. Build my fucking game for me. Oh, no. What happens if there's an issue with it? Well, you built it. Sorry, dude. Yeah, you got more of a hands-on factory tour level. Do you want them to be able to get to work on the line? Your warranty is void. Yeah. You put this part on wrong on your own game in our factory.
    47:24
    I'm sorry. That just sounds stupid to me. I can see if you're, no, if you wanted to power it on for the first time, like the way they do with the Corvettes. Like, the game's built, they're getting ready to plug it in, and you get to hit the start button for the first time. That would be kind of cool. Yeah, hey, you know, you get to start your game. You can test your own game. Yes, that I can agree with. If anything's going wrong when you get it, then it's your fault. Hey, I'm not the guy at the Corvette factory pouring in the gallons of, you know, the quarts of oil going, Hey, Joe, how was your night last night? I'm done. Wait a sec. That thing only went like 10 seconds. We're good. Start the engine up.
    48:02
    Are you referencing something there, Bruce? Yeah, like somebody didn't put enough oil in their engine, and then guess what? Does that actually happen with Corvettes, or are you just randomly saying something? I'm just randomly saying something. There's actually something that happened in the 70s that I don't know about. In Corvette, you can actually go there and start the car for the first time. If you go down to the factory tour and you bought a Corvette, you actually sit in your car and you start the car for the first time. And you really hope it works. And you hope it works. But if you were building it and then starting it, I wouldn't want to be turning that key.
    48:34
    I wouldn't trust myself. Yeah. What happens if it breaks? You're like, oh, fuck. The DPX, Alice in Wonderland, isn't the only Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. A lot of fucking suckers. I don't understand this. Hold on. Let me get into it before you get into your diatribe here. Wonderland Amusements, the other company that's making Alice in Wonderland. Theirs is called Alice Goes to Wonderland, and this is supposed to be the sub-$1,000 game. The most expensive and cheapest game are both Alice. Yes. Yeah. So it's supposed to be created at 80% scale. So they are going to do or did a Kickstarter. It has balls. It has ramps. It has this. People who sign up for the White Rabbit level of their campaign will be able to receive the game for $799, a 20% discount off the eventual full manufacturer's suggested retail price. Have you guys seen that video where it's like it has flippers and it has poppers and it has ramps? And there's a video of it playing while they do each of those things, and none of the things are shown in the video. No! It's like it has slings, and it shows a video where there's no ball anywhere near the slings. It has ramps, and they don't shoot a ramp. It has multi-ball, and there's one ball on the play field. Like, what the fuck? I saw this, and I was like, holy fuck, and how much did they make, boys and girls? Well, their Kickstarter was fully funded in two minutes, once again showing that pinball people will fucking pay for anything. They just don't. I mean, honestly, like, that's less than a topper. It's a really easy gamble for most pinball people to make. That is true. But people are complaining about the gamble, though, too. They're, oh, I didn't get my game. What the fuck? Why did this happen? Compared to, like, any other stupid stuff people do, this is, like, the easiest thing in the world. The campaign reached its $100,000 initial fundraising goal in an astonishing two minutes. I'm getting this from Nap Arcade. Hi, Nap. Yes. What was the total amount they got? But it kept going. It kept going. It looks like it's $334,733.
    50:30
    325 backers. Yeah. So, holy fuck. You people are stupid again. Will they be stupid if they actually get their game? Or will you say they're still stupid because they... Let's go for the odds. What has been successful and what has not been successful with these things? Hmm. Well, aren't these the people that make the arcade cabinets or whatever? They can make anything you want. Pinball's hard. These are going to be made in Taiwan or something anyway, or China, if I remember. They're not going to be made here. Yeah. So what does that tell you? They have to ship them over. We're going to have the same warping issues like we did with the fucking, what's it called, with Haggis and all those other, it's going to be a shit show. But 325 back, because that means at least 325 people want this game. Yeah, great.
    51:20
    325 stupid people. Great. But they only had a lot of 200 spots. Wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait. So there's 200 spots and 325 people. Why the fuck would you do that after the first 200? Thank you. That doesn't make any sense.
    51:37
    Yeah. It's going to be, it's just a shit show. It's going to be a shit show. Mark my words, a year and a half from now, you're going to have people going, I'm still waiting for my game, man. Why is my game here? Or somebody's going to get their game, the first one, and they're going, holy fuck, what did I just pay for? What do you think, Zach?
    51:56
    Yeah. Did you pay? It's only $100. Like, did you put money in? Well, if it's one left, I can just go buy it right now. He's typing away, trying to get it. Look, I'm going to go buy it. He's going to buy it right now. I'm on the way, guys. Uh-huh. I did not, of course. I have common fucking sense. These are the same people who put the Pinside Top 20 out. Oh, God. Here we go with that again. No.
    52:22
    It's just stupidity. Okay. No. I think it'll come out, but I think you'll get what you pay for. Yeah. It's not going to be, you know. It's not a pinball machine. It's a pachinko. Does it actually say pinball machine? I wouldn't nudge it too hard. Let's just put it that way. You might want to be gentle with it and not. You watch. It's a fucking pachinko machine with ramps. The ball's going to go over and down and go back and forth. No, it's going to be more like, oh, the ball's going down the middle. Slap save. Oh, there goes the legs. Oh, it fell over. They took it out the knee. Oh, my gosh. There goes the lockdown bar. It just flew right off.
    52:59
    Oh. Did you know that Stern Pinball filed a trademark for King Kong, Myth of Terror Island? Huh? So, do you think the next game's going to be King Kong? Huh? It's totally going to be King Kong. Of course it is. But it's going to be called Myth of Terror Island. So what does that mean? Like, what Kong is this going to be?
    53:21
    New and improved cartoon Kong. I mean, yeah, is it going to be the new Kong? Is it going to be the 30s Kong? Is it going to be the 70s Kong?
    53:30
    I can't picture any Kong being good. Yeah. Wow. Really? Yeah. Okay, why is no Kong good, but Godzilla is? Because Godzilla's good and Kong isn't. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. Which one do you have, like, every single fucking movie on your car drive already, Ron? Exactly. I have both King Kong. I have King Kong and King Kong, the second one, King Kong Returns. You have all two of them. So you have all two of them. And then there's how many Kongs out there? No, no, I also have King Kong versus Godzilla. I have the other Toho King Kong movie, which is King Kong versus Mecha King Kong. Ooh, Mecha King Kong. Yes, yes, yes. There was a Mecha King Kong. And how many Godzilla movies do you have? All of them. Well, they weighed way more. What do you want from me? So you have all the new ones, too. That doesn't make any sense, your argument. So do you have all the new ones, like with Jack Black, the King Kong one? Oh, God, no. No. Oh, wait a sec, wait a sec. They're all good. Didn't you just say three seconds before they were all good? No, those are not good. How much even plot line do you have to work with? Okay, let me read. I don't have all the Godzilla movies because I don't have any of the American-made ones. I only have the Toho Godzilla movies. So you don't have the 30s one?
    54:40
    30s? There was no Godzilla movie in the 30s. Oh, King Kong movie I'm talking about in the 30s. Again, Godzilla is Toho. Only Toho makes Godzilla. American Godzilla is nothing. It sucks. How about Queen Kong? Have you gotten Queen Kong? Oh, God. Is it still in copyright? I don't think so anymore It might be still Oh is that why they started making them all again It's because they didn't have to pay Actually I think I have seen Queen Kong It was pretty bad I'm sorry I've never seen a good King Kong movie I agree So the original King Kong movie, the classic is not good It's like 1930's good But it's not good good Oh wow so 1930's good Is it really good? Usually no Wow, you just pissed off every film buff. Oh, no. They can come get me from their wheelchairs. The 1933 movie and the Son of Kong. Son of Kong, that's the second one. And will enter public domain in 2029. Ooh. Stern should have waited. They could have got it cheaper. Yeah, they could have gotten so much cheaper. They could have gotten so much cheaper. And they could have gotten, given Ellen, like, a single game without a monster theme in the middle.
    55:48
    So it sounds like you guys aren't very excited about King Kong. not from a theme perspective at all no it is Elwynn so it should be good that's a positive would you be happy about what's it Steamboat Willie cartoon oh yeah because that's public domain now yeah exactly they only made a homebrew for it well remember I hate Disney and I hate Mickey Mouse so no that would not work but that is a thing no one's even tried that I've seen to make a King Kong homebrew yeah no one cares oh dad you used to try to make one homebrew Oh, yeah. Okay, I got a question for you. In five years, are you going to see these homebrews of Superman and Batman? Because they're going to become public domain.
    56:29
    I don't think homebrews care about public domain. Wait a minute. How is Superman ever becoming public domain? That doesn't make sense. It's because it's been out since 31, 32. Meaning he's not going to be public domain now. There will be some kind of thing. Even Disney couldn't stop them, Ron. It's going to happen. It is. I think it's very specific, though. Like, if you were going to do Steve, like, Willie, whatever. It's only really old. You didn't have to do old Mickey. You couldn't do anything that looks like modern Mickey. It's probably going to be the same thing with Superman. Totally agree. And the same thing with Superman. Like if Superman flies, that doesn't work because originally Superman did not fly. He didn't fly. He just jumped really far. Yeah, he leaped tall buildings in a single bound. That's why he was leaping because he couldn't fly. That's why he was way more interesting. The reason he flew is because when they did the cartoon, the cartoon had him fly. So they changed the comics so he could fly. Why do you know this stuff? because I know lots of useless shit, but yes. You know so much useless shit. It's amazing. Yes, but the Fleischer cartoons of the 40s. Even now, I'm still amazed at the new useless shit you pull out of your ass. Yes, but I don't pull it out of my ass. You can actually look that up. But the Fleischer cartoons of the 40s, he flew in those because it's animated and they can make him do cool stuff. So the comic book, like, hey, let's make him fly. There you go. Okay, so, Ron, just to get you on a Disney kick also. Oh, no, I hate Disney. Yes. Guess who owns the movie rights? To what? To King Kong. Well, probably Disney, right? Otherwise you wouldn't say that. TV they own. TV? They own TV rights to King Kong. There's two separate rights. So they can broadcast it on Disney Plus as a TV series. Oh, God. Even if it's not TV. Even if it's not TV, it's still, if they put it in episodic form. No, I'm going to wait to go on Prime so I can see the latest in the James Bond cinematic universe. I can't wait. I can't wait for the Moneypenny spinoff. You going to sign up for the James Bond package?
    58:23
    Oh, Bill, take the package, all right. The Goldfinger origin story, I demand it. He's going to take the package, all right. You watch and see. When he was a young child, a brick of gold. Yeah, I want to see how he's father. He loved gold. Why did he love gold so much? We find out his name really wasn't Goldfinger. He changed it to Goldfinger. It was Silverfinger, and he wanted to be better. His real name was Oryx Silver And it became Oh god It's going to suck so bad Poor Bond, Bond deserved better He does What do you think actually Because Zach has actually watched Bond movies I love Bond I've been re-watching all the classic Bonds What do you think that Amazon owns it now It's going to suck I mean they've done such great things with Lord of the Rings Yeah Lord of the Rings All the rings of power Yeah. Oh, God. Anything good that's come out of Amazon comes out despite Amazon. Yes.
    59:19
    They're like Disney, but without a background in actually doing good things in the past. Yes. To, like, push them forward.
    59:25
    Okay. So on to the next thing. Multimorphic announced it will be making non-glare glass. Yes. Cheap, too. Called Pin Glass, or Pin Glass Plus, it looks like. Special launch pricing, $150. Per sheet. They're selling normal glass, and then they're selling the Ping Glass Plus. And the Ping Glass Plus is their anti-glare glass. Which is $150. Yes. So times that by 80, Zach, and we're ready, right? Well, we have about 70 or 60 because we have some wide bodies there. It is a decent price. Very interesting. Yeah, we can give it all that glare on the screen. Yeah, all that glare. Well, honestly, it's only certain games that you have that have glare, so just replace the glass in those games. So it's 150 times 80 games. Well, some of them have the Stern stuff in them already. And some of them have wide body. So let's go 65. That will be $10,000. Oh, no problem. All to not have glare. It's worth it. Zach, so you heard Ron saying we should get this. So I think Ron should pay for it. Yeah, 10K. Just so we have non-glared streams. And if that wasn't enough, Multimorphic is also going to be announcing a new module on the 17th. Oh, Friday. So this episode will probably be out after that. But, yes, it will be announced Monday at 10 a.m. Central Time because they're in Texas. And it looks like it's going to be something called Portal. So what's Portal, Zach? Because me and Bruce have no clue what this is. No fucking clue. So all I see is somebody wants cake. Have you heard of Valve?
    61:09
    No. The company that owns Steam? Oh, I've heard of Steam. I've heard of Steam, yes. Yeah, so they started Steam. They also made games they used to back before they had Steam. They just made money just by existing and were incredibly rich. And one of the games they made was Portal.
    61:26
    It was really popular. Make money by existing. I've got to remember that one. They literally get 20% off every game sold on Steam and just by continuing to run Steam, they make more money than they could ever make by actually making games. So they just stopped making games. Okay. So what is the game Portal? What do you do in it? What kind of game is it? It's like one of the first puzzle first person. You can shoot portals on walls and jump through them to navigate through places. It was a really big deal when it came out in the PC gaming world. Now it's become a pretty standard thing. Why don't they have Zork? Navigating, puzzles, all kinds of stuff that I wouldn't want to play. Why don't they play like Zork? I like Zork. Go left. Go east.
    62:06
    Getting you in by a groove. Now you can't play Portal. I love Zork. I got for like four rooms of Zork. Yeah. So hopefully this game will actually be a TPF. You'd really hope so, yeah. You would think. You would think being that you're Texas-based and it's in Texas, and they're going to announce it right before then. Yeah. That it's going to be there, but yeah. So you'll be able to meet Ron and give him a hug at Texas Pinball Festival. So this podcast is too old to be for the portal, but multiple other groups I'm in with a younger generation of people that still have hair. We're like, holy shit, portal. Wow. Give him 10 more years, folks. That will be just joining us. Yeah I think he kind of thin as it is even with his long hair I just saying it getting up top So how long has going to before he gets a haircut because he going to be in that denial phase He will be in that denial phase. Probably 42, 43. Yeah, probably. So 12 more years. Okay. Yeah, enjoy the long hair while you got it. Enjoy the long hair while you can, buddy. That is literally the plan, yeah. That is literally the plan. Or if I can.
    63:09
    Because later you can't. But anyway. Oh, I like to pick up right off that subject. What do you want, Baldy? Let's go.
    63:19
    FB, future Baldy. Future Baldy. In my millennial chat. Millennial chat. Wow, we talk about all the things like... Everyone's like, oh, wow, Portal. And then, oh, yeah, it's a P3 game. Yeah, I know. Wow. And it costs like $4,000 or something just for the module.
    63:42
    And, yeah. You got to get a game before it, so you got to pay at least $10 to $12. I feel like they've been releasing all the themes targeted at a younger generation, you know, than other people, but the younger generation can't afford it. Can't afford it. Yeah, that's the thing I don't, yeah, you got to put the newer stuff, but they're not going to be able to afford the $4,000 for this. That's just a module. That's assuming they already have the full P3. Which, like, the only people I know who have the P3 are, like, the people with the most money. nod. Yeah.
    64:16
    Yeah. That's kind of true. See, this would be a perfect second theme for the Wonderland guys. Okay, so... You want to get a new tree? No. I do like Final Resistance, but they stopped making them. Yeah. That's what I don't understand also. You had to buy a mod, man. Yeah, I mean, it didn't seem like they made them that long. They were there, and then they were gone. Well, I don't think they even made a lot of Weird Owls, and that one had an actual theme. Yeah. But Final Resistance was the most pinball-y of the P3s that I played.
    64:49
    Yeah. It's the pinball-iest. Yeah. I liked it. I liked the cannon thing firing back at you and all that stuff. The sound, light show. It was cool. Yeah, I thought it was cool. I hardly saw any of them, and I was surprised that they're not made. Because it's like an original theme. You didn't think it would be. They could probably keep cranking those out.
    65:09
    Well, they've got to manufacture all the parts and batches and things. Yeah. But still, there's no licensing involved. I mean, they're trying to do the J.J.P. Parks of the Caribbean thing with like, oh, you got to buy it now because you're not going to make any more. We saw it. That worked out. Yeah, that worked out real good.
    65:23
    One more thing I want to talk about with P3. Didn't they hire somebody? Okay. Jesus Christ, now you're making me. Yeah, go ahead. Look it up, Bruce. I am looking it up. And you know it already, so why don't you just fucking say it? I don't know it, Bruce. Ian?
    65:39
    I don't know, Bruce. Remember, I'm not on Facebook all the time, so if he announced it on Facebook, there's a chance I didn't see it. He's the one who's been doing the homebrew third-party modules, and now he's been brought in-house. He's been brought in-house. So who is this, Bruce? Ian, I can't remember his name. Ian Hauer. Oh, yeah. H. Yes. See, I do with H, too. I know, like, three E and H's. I can never remember which one is which. Yeah, so he got actually a full-time gig at E3. Oh, okay. So congratulations. That's awesome. the meetup. Congratulations.
    66:12
    This explains why he was super excited about Portal yesterday. Yes. Ah. It's because he's literally involved. Yes. Portal. See? Makes sense now. Uh-huh. It all gets put together.
    66:24
    So, ball bag? The ball bag. Oh, do we have any more news? No, that's it for news, Bruce. Dang. I'm sure there might be other news, but that's all I have. Yeah, you were banned from Facebook, so you didn't learn anything. Well, I learned Robert Mueller's case is still going. Oh, Jesus Christ. listening to the Pinball News podcast there. The Pinball News podcast.
    66:48
    They've been following the Mueller thing because the last we left our hero, Robert Mueller, he had been. Hello, brother. He lost his, what did he lose? He lost the civil, no, he lost the federal case for the SEC. But how much he has to pay hasn't been determined yet until the civil case happens, which was supposed to happen, but then his lawyer left or whatever, and he had to get a second lawyer. So then it was delayed. It was supposed to start now, but that lawyer is gone now. So now he's on lawyer number three. So he gets another 90-day reprieve. So it won't be until July. Is it the new technique of just block your lawyers out? Yeah, I'm wondering, can you just fire lawyers until you're never going on trial? Is that how it works? I mean, this has been fucking years now. This is ridiculous. You should hire Johnson, Johnson, and Johnson. Then you get three separate Johnsons. Exactly.
    67:37
    Yeah, he's got a fucking Johnson, all right. that's my brother, bring up my asshole, dude. It's just, God, how long? The legal system is just so broken. It's broken in a lot of ways. I need 90 more days for my current lawyer to figure out everything. Like, really? You could look at it for like an hour and probably figure out what's going on. Yeah, you're screwed, bro.
    68:03
    Wait, that's not the way I want to do this. Give me another lawyer. I am a real American. Yeah. Okay, Robert. All right. So, yes. On to the ball bag.
    68:17
    We have a press release here that we got from Chuck, Mr. Webster. It's about the New England Pinball League and Fun Spot team up for New Hampshire's largest pinball event.
    68:32
    That's a lot of asterisks. What do you mean? It's not their largest event? New Hampshire's largest pinball event. Probably.
    68:41
    I mean, I think some of the largest one they had was when they had Pinball Wizards Arcade there. Yeah. Don't they have, like, the pinball co-op? Isn't that New Hampshire? No, that's... Oh, yeah, that is New Hampshire. That is New Hampshire. Uh-oh. Well, let's read that. I thought they ran, like, semi-good-sized tournaments there. Hopefully this hasn't already happened. Otherwise, this will... I'm trying to look for the date here. No, it hasn't happened yet. Okay. Woo! Good, good. Okay. Laconia, New Hampshire, a place that I am very familiar with. The New England Pinball League is thrilled to announce that the season 33, wow, 33 seasons, finals will be returning to New Hampshire. The iconic fun spot in Laconia, which we talked about in our last episode, will host the event on Sunday, March 23rd. This exciting tournament marks the culmination of another successful season with a record-breaking 563 players participating. I think that should be a battle royale. Just get a big ring, throw them all in there. Making the New England Pinball League the largest pinball league in the world. World, world, world, world. It wasn't already? It's trying to get bigger. Fun Spot, known for housing the largest collection of classic arcade games in the world, which I believe that's not true. I believe it's Galloping Ghost at this point. But Fun Spot has a much larger facility. It's known for it, even if it's not true.
    69:59
    They have a much larger facility. Provides the perfect backdrop for the highly anticipated event. Players from across New England will converge to compete for top honors, cash prizes, and showcase their pinball prowess. Let's see. Yes, it is Sunday, March 23rd at Fun Spot. The person will be over $7,000 in cash and prizes. Wow. That's a lot. Final start at 10 a.m.
    70:25
    Are you excited? Wait, final start at 10 a.m., but isn't the event on Sunday? It's on Sunday. Sunday, 10 a.m. You said final start at 10. The finals start at 10 because they've been building up to it. All different regional stuff, and then all the finalists come there. Yep. Does that mean 563 people are coming there? No, no, no. It's just showing that it's 563 people played in this league. I think it's like 20 per area, so it's going to be a big bang. We are excited to host the season 33 finals at Fun Spots. This is Chuck Webster, New England Pinball League organizer. The venue is a legendary destination for pinball and arcane enthusiasts, making it the ideal location for our championship event. We look forward to welcoming players and spectators for a day of intense competition and camaraderie. Ooh, camaraderie. So a lot of New England players are not going to TPF.
    71:11
    Oh, yeah. Yeah, how you doing? In addition to the thrilling competition, attendees can enjoy Fun Spot's vast array of arcade games, bowling lanes, mini golf, and more. They get a fun-filled day for the entire family.
    71:23
    I haven't done mini golf in a long time. Have you ever been to Fun Spot? I do it on cruise all the time. Zach? Oh, no, I haven't. I have. I went wrong. Yeah. How many holes do they have in a cruise? There's an 18. There's a 9 and a 9. Oh, you're talking about cruising. For more information about the New England Pinball League, Fun Spot, and the upcoming finals, please visit the New England Pinball League website at www.nepl.org or www.funspotnh.com. Okay, Zach, here's the best part about the cruising now. The new ship that I'm going to be going on next year, they have booze shakes. That does not appeal to me at all, Bruce. And regular shakes, too, but they also have booze shakes.
    72:02
    Are they made of real ice cream? Yes. But remember, the Fun Spot has an indoor miniature golf course. I believe that's on the third floor. Indoor. A 20-lane, 10-pin, and candle-pin bowling center. If you've never done candle-pin bowling, try that out. Bingo, which I believe is the building next to it. A restaurant and a tavern, the ice cream stand, kiddie rides, and games.
    72:24
    So there you go. Congratulations, guys. Good luck. Have fun. Enjoy. I sort of want to go play mini golf now. Well, there you go. Go to the fun spot. That's a really long drive, though. Yeah, no, I'm not going to the fun spot. I'm going to Rochester.
    72:38
    Let's see. This one's from Scott. Hi, Scott. Team Billy or Team Steve? Oh, God. I think I know what this is going to be. Ron, I finally watched the King of Cod documentary that you have mentioned many times over the years. What's your take on Billy's contested score, real or maimed? Karate champ forever, Scott S. 100% maimed. They proved it was Mame. They even were able to figure out what version of Mame he did it on. He just used Mame's save states to get the game, and then he recorded it on a VHS tape.
    73:09
    So there you go. Cheater. Boo, cheating. I did my score live during a tournament. But, hey, he's known for being good at Kong. The thing is about Billy Mitchell, he does have a legitimate perfect Pac-Man game. He does have legitimate records. I kind of see him as like the Barry Bonds of TV. Wow. That he had the natural talent, but then he cheated anyway on top of it, if that makes any sense. Like, he actually was a top player, but then he cheated anyway. There are people that are not top players that cheat.
    73:45
    Let's see. All opinions stated by Ron Hallett are only expressed from us. I think a lot of people would have that opinion. This is from our Scott. Hi, Scott. The programming dynamo. So, oh, this is from our last episode where we were complaining about the Who and all the loops and how it's so boring to watch because everyone just does that. Yes, Sonic Boom, Sonic Boom, Doctor Who. So he's asking Snow and Doctor Who, what should happen instead of Sonic Boom? Just have it able to be turned off? I don't think you can nerf it completely, he says. So instead of bitching about it, what would you do to make it different? I think you should do ten whole Who combos. Yeah, you do 10, and then you have to, you know, lock a ball again. Something like that, where you have to change the whole flow of the game.
    74:33
    Well, what specific thing? You do the 10 sonic booms, and then guess what? Every time you do it again, it takes away points from you, and then you have to relock the ball. No, take away points. That'll never. You get half a play-through of X, but you lose a million points. Exactly.
    74:48
    Okay, I don't think that's ever going to happen. Only people who take points away from you are Zax Games. I love it. And whodunit. Let's see. This next one's from Corey. It says, hi there. Did Ron get his Facebook fixed? Yes. I did. Oh, Corey knows somebody at Facebook. Ooh, see? To file that away in case I get locked out again. Book in the face.
    75:13
    This is from Tom. Hi, Tom. Make it pro or premium? Make it pro or premium. Good afternoon, guys. Hope all is well. Before we get into today's Make It Pro, I had a quick question. Last episode, Bruce gave the list of the tournament games and their groups for the upcoming event. World Cup Soccer was placed in the mid-group along with Alien Star, Arena, Diner, Tommy, Taxi, etc. Demoman was placed in the new group along with Foo Fighters, Game of Thrones, Iron Maiden, Jackpot Rush, etc. Considering that World Cup Soccer and Demoman were literally built at the same time and almost the same month, what were the factors that put them in either group? Was it basically a flip of the coin? Josh. Originally, it was Lethal Weapon 3, not World Cup. Yep. And that is a slightly older game, although it still doesn't feel like a mid to me. But then World Cup became available, and Josh said he preferred that to Lethal Weapon. So we swapped it out, but not really paying attention to the years at that point. Ah. Yep. Okay. And because of that, no one played Cheetah. I know.
    76:20
    But everyone loved Cheetah. People are coming up to me like, that Cheetah plays awesome. I'm like, thank you.
    76:26
    Everyone loves Cheetah. My Cheetah. Your Cheetah. One of the times I was announcing they're playing Cheetah, and I think it might have been Don Yelly, and he kept hitting the right spinner.
    76:40
    And I just said, you know, if he could ever get the Grit Award, for the right spinner, which is yellow, the yellow color, get three in a row, he could hit the spinner like a couple times and he'd be done. Yeah. And then he literally did that. And I'm like, hey! I mean, I was saying even like just using the U-turn spinner, a few rips on that, more rips, but still like,
    77:02
    that's a solid strat for a pin golf. A lot of solid strats for that game in pin golf. I saw at least four. Back on to the serious part. Make it pro. Remove three max. Make it pro. Three mechs are features from the following games. World Poker Tour.
    77:18
    No lower flippers. No upper flippers. No lower flippers. Oh, come on. There's a lot of drop targets. You could probably remove something along those lines. How many mechs are just drop targets in that game? Three, four, five. It's two for each side and one for the back. So you could remove just the sides and still have the real drops in the middle. If we make it pro, remove the upper play field.
    77:46
    Not even going to get a bouncy play field. No flippers. Oh, God. Okay. That's still, is that three items? That's not three items. No. Well, it's more than three because of the buck to get up there and the ace in the hole up there.
    78:00
    I leave the ace in the hole and put it on the lower part. I put the ace in the hole on the bottom. Yeah, you could put the ace in the hole where the buck is to go up there. Exactly. Okay, there you go. And then you get rid of the upper play field and the ramps for that. Yes, then you lose the buck, you lose the two flippers, you lose the post to hold up there, and you lose the buck for the pledge to get up there. Exactly. There's a lot of losing just for one item to be moved. And more enjoyable.
    78:26
    And you take away the middle drop target. I like the other play field on where a poker is. It's not bad. It's just not great. I mean, it's going to be the rest of the game.
    78:32
    Let's see. Next game, big buck hunter. Oh, God. You can't remove the buck. That's the whole game. Yeah. You could remove the ram kicker. Yeah, the ram kicker. You can get the ram. Yeah. And there's an up post there, too, to collect extra ball, I think.
    78:50
    Because there's not much on the game other than the buck. Pop bumpers. Get rid of those pop bumpers. Just let it, like, you know, bounce around in the rubber. Just bounce around. Remove the left slingshot. Make it a dead bumper. Yeah. There's not much to remove on that fucking game. That was already the pro version of it. Yeah, that was this drift era of that game. There was no premium, so I would actually say that was horrible.
    79:16
    Indianapolis 500. It's a fitting car. And the diverter car. Yeah, the diverter car, definitely. And the thing that kicks it up to the mode start from the... How about the turbo thing? Turbo I like. I like the turbo. You've got to remove three things. You remove the car, you remove the other car, and you remove the plunger. You just make it a ball plunge Is that enough? No, you need that for the multi-ball. But there's this little kicker below the turbo that shoots up to the upper hole. You can just give it to that. I was thinking you need to get rid of the push-button thing and just make it a plunger. It's cheaper. But you need to launch balls from multiple. I know. You're still going to need to launch balls from them. And also, every Stern has an auto-launcher now. It's a standard thing. I know. But this is not, you know, this is pro. Williams. Yes. No, Stern pros have an auto-launcher.
    80:05
    They're junk anyway. Also, the Wheeler's auto-launcher is actually cheaper than the shooter. True. It is. So that wouldn't be helping for a pro at all. What else?
    80:15
    Really, it's the best that's starting to fall, auto-launchers. Oh, those stupid special drop targets. Oh, those things that you never try to hit. Yeah, and the problem is if you hit them and you break them, you can't replace them. They're not cheap. Yeah. It's a good thing no one shoots for them. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, they remind me of those two targets in Congo that no one ever shoots. Yeah. So get rid of those, definitely. There you go. All right. Now, one more, but this is a make it premium.
    80:39
    So we're going to take a stripped down game and try to make it premium. Okay. Big Buck Hunter. Iron Man.
    80:48
    It's perfect. Done. No, you have to make it premium. Make the Iron Man drop targets. Yes. There you go. Iron Man, yes, drop targets.
    80:59
    Make some of the characters move somehow. Oh, it can actually put gates at the top of the pasta on just a one-way post. Yes, that I agree. Make it so, like, Whiplash actually moves when you hit in his area. You add a coil there. Bigger, rounder magnets instead of the cheap, smaller. You want a foot-wide magnet. No, the three-inch ones instead of the little. The three-inch ones. I think the magnets are the same size. They just have a metal. On the new one, they're smaller. The new ones are bigger. You know, that's what I'm saying. You make the bigger area, surface area, so you don't have so much damage to the playfield. Yeah, Walking Dead and also the newer Spider-Man. And the new Metallica, right? The new Metallica, too, yes. Yeah, I would just add little coils for the characters to make them move when you hit them. Like Elton John's fucking whiplashes doing, Oh, they're close!
    81:51
    With his whiplashes. Ah! Ah! It would be a bit weird, but it'd be cool to have a ramp diverter so you can make the left ramp loopable during a bogey. Yeah, that would be kind of cool.
    82:04
    Wow, all these ideas. Let's see. Until next time, may your balls be shiny and your flippers firm and strong. Mm-hmm.
    82:12
    Thank you, Tom. This next one is from Dr. John. There's a link. Oh, boy. Would you or would you not buy this?
    82:23
    And it's basically, it's someone else sent us this, too. It's the ultimate Gene Simmons experience. Oh, I don't understand that to us. You get to be a roadie for a day for $12,530. Yes, you can be, yeah, for $12,500, you can be Gene Simmons, bitch. If building your own spooky wasn't enough for you. Yeah, yeah. Personal assistant and band roadie for the day. What do you get? You will get to meet up with Gene Simmons. You get spit in the face by Gene Simmons. Early in the day, early in the day, either at his hotel or designated location. And you get to go over the band's show day schedule. Hey, what are we doing today? We're setting up for a concert. Where? Right here. $12,000 to meet at his Disney location. That's right, Bruce. You'll get to be on the Gene Simmons band team crew for the entire day. Wow. You'll get a crew member shirt and hat and a VIP laminate. You will get to have a meal with Gene Simmons at the hotel or backstage at the show. You will arrive and load into the venue with the band so you get to help the band set up. Wow. You will help the band set up. You will hang out backstage.
    83:36
    Oh, you get to sit in on the sound check. I just want to fall off the stage. And then Gene's like, oh, we did not put insurance on for you. Isn't there, like, tons of, like, legal stuff?
    83:48
    I'm sure you'll get to sign all that. Yeah, you sign your life away. You signed your life to Gene Simmons. Yeah. I will bring you on stage during the show and introduce you. Wow. I mispronounced your name. You will get a set list signed by Gene Simmons. You will take on a Gene Simmons kiss rehearsal use base signed by Gene Simmons. Wow. Not show use. Just rehearsal. You can take photos throughout your entire experience as long as they're not of Gene Simmons. I just made that part up. You may bring one guest? Wow. Ron, you are my assistant. Ron, you are my assistant to the assistant. We can help Gene Stibitz set up.
    84:31
    You can bring four items for Gene to sign, but no instruments. Pinball machine, here we come. Four of them coming down the aisle. Jeez, just roll the kiss machines down.
    84:43
    Oh, my God. Would we buy it? No. Fucking no. That's stupid. it. Are there actually any kiss machines that they're signed by Gene? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Back glasses. He's done it. Yeah. But I was looking at this. That must be a great selling technique. I was thinking $12,000 if it was like Queen. If it was Queen in their heyday or something. You get to hang out with fucking Queen and you get to come on the stage at Wembley and be introduced and it's like ugh.
    85:14
    You know? Yeah, not Gene Simmons at the Not Gene Simmons at some little shit venue, wherever the hell he's going to be. Yeah. The Palace Theater in Buffalo, which holds 2,000 people.
    85:27
    Yay, I'm here. I'm in the big time. Yay. All right. This next one is from Ed. It says, hi, Ron and Bruce. I have a question. Ooh, it looks like a tech question. We got Zach on, too. We got Zach, so we got the master of all tech. And it's a game you guys have. I think we call it. I recently picked up a Valley Embryon. Our Embryon's possessed right now still, right, Zach? No, it's currently working, I think. Oh, what happened? Because I wiggled the connector. Oh, great. Connector wiggling. Well, Ron, it messed up what sounds it plays, so all these sounds on the play field are now speech.
    86:06
    But they don't queue up properly. Oh, man. And the spinner sound is it saying malfunction. Malfunction. No, it doesn't cut it off. It just cuts it over and over and over. Cool. Oh, that's awesome.
    86:19
    Malfunction. Yep. I was just sitting at the desk like, I just hear malfunction, malfunction, malfunction. I'm like, what? And I look over and like, embryon, three ball, malfunction, malfunction, malfunction. You yell at the person, what? Stop tilting it. Like, I didn't do anything. I just hit the fucking spinner, yeah.
    86:40
    It was hilarious, but also super annoying. Okay. It's been running into an issue. If I hold the right flipper button in, it blows a fuse. Don't hold it in. The 5-amp F4 fuse, to be exact. I noticed when I got the game, the diode was broke off. Maybe that's it? When you push the button in, it should close the first switch and open the switch behind it, right? I can't find a part number for the always-closed switch. Any help would be awesome. That part number should be on Pinball Resource. Yeah, PBR, you should have it, definitely. Or if you email them and ask them what you need, they'll be happy to help you always. They will? Or they're going to yell at you? They're going to yell at you. Okay.
    87:25
    But we can look up that part number for you and probably get back to you on that one. The diode is needed, definitely, if it's broke off. I don't think it would blow a fuse, but it definitely would do other stuff. Yes, it would do other stuff and probably switch matrix crap. But it sounds like your EOS switch is probably misadjusted. Misadjusted. Just go to pbresource.com and look for the switch. It should be there. Let me go look for the last one. Bruce, is probably the one where the playfield fuse is everything but the flippers, or it's only the flippers? Yes, it's everything but the flippers. So what he's blowing is actually, he's blowing the 43 volts on the... The regulator board. The regular power board down the bottom. Yeah. So that's why I'm saying it's probably EOS that's misadjusted, and then both powers are on for the flipper, and it's just shorting out, just drawing too much amperage. Well, Bruce is looking it up, and he says, keep rocking, guys. One of your STDs. Oh, my. P.S., will you ever sell slam-tilt shirts? I'd buy one in a heartbeat. Wow. See, Ron? We can make our money that way. We're not selling out anything if we make shirts. If someone comes up with a shirt design that doesn't have my face in it, sure. and the part number is AFWA1045. Yes, and if you go to you can get that through PBR definitely. PBR, probably Marco probably has it. Yeah, sometimes Marco does. Pinball Life.
    88:50
    Let's see. The next we have two games here. I'm going to hold off on the one. Sorry, Dr. John. Because I don't think you guys did you guys even read what I sent you? We don't have to read. I ignore you. I ignore you all the time. Yeah, we just go right now. But, no. Number one.
    89:12
    I'm trying to keep this more under control. I just do one game per... Well, technically, we already did the one game, but we're going to do two games here. But we will get back to Dr. John's game in a future episode. What the hell are you talking about? What? To make it pro is a game, isn't it? I guess. It's considered annoyance. Oh, wow.
    89:31
    Yes, Tom. Zach doesn't like your game, I like the game, I just don't like the way you two play it. Several of our listeners like the game, so. Oh, you don't like the way we play it, so it's our fault. Yeah. We're not, he doesn't agree with us, Ron, so that's the way. Oh, so it's bad, yes, that's right. I'll tell you guys to correctly interpret how pros are actually made versus premiums and stuff. You're just like, what's the biggest, coolest thing? Let's remove it. Ha, ha, ha. I didn't say, no, that is totally wrong. That you could not be more wrong. What did I say about fucking Big Buck Hunter? You can't remove the buck. That's literally the gimmick. It has to stay. It is. And we've had other make it pros. You just draw a blank. We had other pros that have... We barely get anything in that game, Zach. I think one of them was like Iron Man make it pro, and I'm like, pretty much already is. I'm like, you can't remove the monger. That is the game. Yeah. Well, you said that, but then you said make it premium. You couldn't find anything to add either, so... I'm sorry. We're not as good as you, Zach. We're not at your God level.
    90:25
    Sorry. We can never be at your level. You ever like watch someone play a game, and they're just way worse than you at it, and you just want to grab the controller out of their hands? You know? That's me listening to you guys do this.
    90:35
    Too bad you have no control. Yeah, too bad I have no control. I just have to sit there and skip it on my player when I have this podcast. You got it. I have to say, watching pinball in, like, a stream, someone's just flipping like crazy. It's like, dude, just let it hit the flipper. Just trap up. Come on. Just don't even flip. Just let it bounce. Yeah, just let it bounce. God damn it.
    90:55
    Let's see. This one is from the pinball princess. Buckle in. Yes. Nighty-night, people. So I'm going to try to say this as fast as I can. I'm going to try my speed reading skills. But she usually uses a lot of fancy words, so it makes it difficult for me.
    91:13
    So here we go. The subject, I wrote this hyped up on hot cocoa. Also, there's a game in here. Yes, we have a game to play at the end of this. So here we go. Dear Ron and Bruce, and Zach, I guess in this case, One of the benefits of neglecting one's podcast feeds for a few months is that you notice some interesting things in retrospect. I'm currently listening to episode 242. Wow, way behind there. Way behind. Fails. Yes, and fits and starts alongside other early January episodes. Wait a minute. You're listening to things other than us? I already had a reason to write in, so I thought, why not? I'll send you some thoughts. Okay. Oh, God. The Slammerball Titticles. What? Oh, Tilticles. Trio of Ron, Bruce, and Dennis. I saw one we had Dennis on. As one might expect, hilarious. As it happens, I was listening to snippets of both the episode of Slam Tilt and Silver Ball Chronicles episode regarding Hankin. It was like listening to clips of the same episode twice over as David Dennis had a very Canadian deja vu moment of shock from learning that Ron Hallett, known American, did not like barbecue. Yeah, I don't like barbecue. No, he doesn't mean either. Oh, Zach doesn't like it either. I just never was into it. How about you, Bruce? I love barbecue. Okay. Pull pork. Definitely. I know that in real time, these were likely recorded at least a month apart, but hearing that twice in episodes posted two days apart was hilarious. I look forward to the inevitable comedy bit at Pintastic wherein David brings barbecue to the venue and ends up in shock at Ron's polite decline of the food. I don't believe Dave's going to Pintastic. What? I believe he canceled that because of the whole stuff that's going on. Why can't I cancel mine now? I am a real American. Oh, God, stop. Mike Poledoro writes of every man. Okay. I will gladly – no politics. I will gladly take – I didn't say politics. I was saying I'm a real American. Yes. I will gladly take – I will gladly save Rebuff Barbecue as payment for name-dropping the Silverball Chronicles with David and Ron, a pinball history podcast. Sorry, one person. On the pinball network. Sorry. It's all gone. It's already available on your friendly neighborhood podcatcher. In this email, I just slightly regret that this opportunity did not come up while the show was in Sturbridge. Oh, I remember that, Sturbridge. There was a barbecue place nearby that had incredible wings. I still dream about their mango habanero wings sometimes. Mango habanero. I would also like to chime in, as we probably move away from the snowy season a little, on the it snowed as I left argument, bringing up old wounds three months later, I would say that the crux of the argument is a disconnect on the definition of is it snowing. Oh, this is when I left and it snowed on the way back. If one goes by all or nothing definition, where the presence of snow falling from the sky means it's snowing, Ron is obviously correct. Thank you. There were flurries, so by that strict measure, it was snowing. Thank you. Bruce, however, is going by the I live by a whole great lake definition, which by this definition of flurry is not necessarily it is snowing because flurries will pop out of the blue on a clear day coming and going so quickly that you questioning your very sense of reality Yep Okay Snow on the other hand is what happens when you walk outside and get hit in the face by an inch-wide clump of snowflakes, one of many, all of which have decided to pile up in a big five-inch cushion on everything around you in the last two hours. Okay. By that definition, Bruce is correct. Yes. Okay. So she's just playing both sides here, and it's not really snowing. It was just flurrying with nothing sticking with minimal impact. No, the roads were not good on my way back at all. It was sticking. In the way that you would contrast sun breeze that picks up. But for a few minutes with a windy day, there are gusts that are unyielding and blowing your trash can over. Okay.
    94:58
    No, I was right. That's what I'm hearing. In conclusion. I did not hear that at all. Absolutely no progress on this argument. Yeah, pretty much. You both were correct. Oh, come on. You're both arguing both slightly different aspects of the elephant you were trying to describe with your eyes closed. Your personal context made what should be clear, but no, it was snowing. No, it wasn't snowing. And it was sticking. No, it wasn't sticking. And the driving sucked. By very definition, that's bad. It was not snowing in Rochester. Done. This is perhaps one of the dangers of blindly fondling elephants. Oh, wow. What? Yeah, you open your eyes and you fondle an elephant. Yeah, you don't do a blind because you might be grabbing the wrong trunk.
    95:37
    Anyway, now that I've talked your ear off, and Zach, if he's on, has presumably argued in Ron's favor about the smell thing. Has he? I forget what the actual argument was. We'll argue against it simply because I presume that. Okay. I actually wrote to give you a game.
    95:59
    I will have another bracket set up for your arguing pleasure. That's why we have Zach on. So he can argue away with us. Break the ties. But luckily we are so good at Zach's. I'll agree on everything, I'm sure. This one is to determine the best classic Stern electronic solid-state game. We've already done this. Oh, wait a minute. No. If none of the games had spinners. Oh.
    96:22
    In most cases, the spinner makes the game on a classic Stern. So we're going to change every single game. Yes.
    96:28
    So enjoy imagining your favorite bastardized beyond recognition. Oh, games beyond recognition. I look forward to the fruits of your suffering.
    96:36
    For both of yours, as always, player 31915. Mythology, I gather the names of the produced off-state games from IPDB, added Cosmic Princess, of course, but all 31 results and one buy in a randomized list and transfer games to the bracket. Okay. Oh, God. Without a spinner?
    96:56
    I think Stingray wins. We're done. Nine ball or stars? That's the better game without a spinner? I mean, I don't shoot the spinner on nine ball anyway. Yeah, I don't really either. I'm going to say nine ball. I'm going to say stars. I'm going to say stars too. Okay. Because you still have drop targets to hit and you still have stars to go for. So, Zach, you keep track of that. We pick stars. It's your job.
    97:27
    Okay, fuck. Open up notepad and just type stars. I'm going to just type notepad in my computer, Ron. Okay, Galaxy versus Vi. I'm not familiar with that game. Oh, no, Galaxy gets a Vi. Oh, okay. Okay.
    97:41
    Trident versus Nugent. I've still never played a Nugent. It's just a regular spinner game like S.T.A.R.S. That's all it is. Well, it's the same. Build bonus, collect bonus via a shot. Multiply bonus. Can you shoot the shot? Yes. It's not like Wildfire where you can't. No, no. I'm going to go with Trident still because of the drop target. Yeah, I'll go with Trident, too.
    98:05
    I'll go with Nugent. You lose. All right. Allie versus Memory Lane. Ooh, Memory Lane, you need the spinners. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So Allie. It's Allie. I think we got an agreement.
    98:22
    Magic versus Wildfire. Two games you can't shoot. I know. I'll say Magic. I'll say Wildfire. I'm going to say Wildfire also. Okay, Wildfire. Think on Wildfire. I like the bottom on Wildfire. I do love the bottom on Wildfire. Oh, the next one is possibly the easiest one. Meteor or Free Fall? Meteor.
    98:44
    Yeah, Meteor. Bruce? Yeah, Meteor. Yeah, why is there even a hesitation on that one? I don't understand. I think Meteor actually comes better when you remove the spinner, to be fair. I actually think so, too. Let's see. Sea Witch and Lightning.
    98:58
    Well, you don't shoot the spinner on Sea Witch. You don't really shoot the spinner on Sea Witch. I'll say Sea Witch.
    99:03
    Lightning, you don't really either on that game because there's so many facts. It's terrible. Hot Hand or Cosmic Princess?
    99:13
    I play Cosmic Princess like once a year at a show. I can't remember half the time. Cosmic Princess is probably better at it because... It puts twice the spinners to remove.
    99:22
    It's got a stupid unhobble cut bonus shot. On High Hand, you got to... Hot Hand. On Hot Hand, I mean, you go for... I'll say Hot Hand. I'm going to say hot hand, actually, too. I do, too. I think there's just too little on Conqueror of Princess that isn't related to spinners. Exactly. Like, all the lanes up top are just spinners and stuff. Yep. Here we go. Big game and split second.
    99:45
    Well, if you remove the spinners on big game, it actually becomes better, so. Split second, there's only one spinner, and it's not really, it's only if you get that hard shot and you have the multipliers up. It really is not needed. The right angle. Some people have. Oh, yeah. Yeah, okay. Hurry, hurry, hurry. I actually think split second's better. I'll say big game. Oh, not say big game. Yeah, say big game.
    100:10
    Oh, God. Talk about different games here. Iron Maiden and pinball. Pinball is all spinner. So is Iron Maiden, though. I know.
    100:22
    I mean, Iron Maiden's at least got a fun layout. It does. I'll say Iron Maiden. I'm going Iron Maiden, too. Actually, pinball, all you do is shoot the 50,000 hole. Exactly, and then you hit the spinner if it's lit. That's all. No, I just shoot the 50,000. Okay, here's... If it's up. Two games with one spinner.
    100:40
    Viper. Dracula. Hmm. Because you are going for multipliers, but the multipliers help your spinners. Yeah.
    100:50
    Where would you even score on Viper if it wasn't via the multiplied spinner? There's nothing else. No. Well, you can go for multiball. So the spinner's gone. I'd rather play Dracula. Yeah, me too. Me too. Okay.
    101:04
    Oh, God. The one everyone loves. Stingray versus Stargazer with no spinners. I have to go with Stingray. Oh. I really do. You just try to time the 100,000 hole over and over. Yeah, exactly. That's all you're doing. Yeah, it's terrible. But, I mean, Stingray is also just terrible. Yeah, I'd still rather play Stargazer and just go for bonus. Yeah, I agree. Try to get like 9X or whatever the hell that thing is. Try to do that. So we'll go with Stargazer. Stingray just can't be saved is what we're saying. Yeah.
    101:37
    Let's see. Oh, God. I think each of these games has one spinner, but they're so different. Catacomb versus Orbiter One.
    101:46
    Orbiter One, no. That's just terrible. We should even count Orbiter One. I can't. I can't go with Orbiter One. Yeah, count. Count Catacomb. Unfortunately. All right. Q versus Flight 2000. Flight 2000 all the way. I don't... You removed that one spinner. There's two spinners. I still think it's better. Yeah. I mean, it's Q. It's definitely... Nothing saves Q. No.
    102:15
    Oh, boy. Okay. This one is interesting. This one's going to suck. Yes. Dragon Fist versus Quicksilver. Yep. Oh, definitely Quicksilver. You hate Quicksilver. Yeah, because the spinner is the biggest problem in that game.
    102:30
    Remove him, it just gets better. It does get better. Makes it easier to shoot all the targets. Yeah. It has a lot of targets. It does. I have to agree with him.
    102:39
    I'll say Dragon Fist because it doesn't matter. And just to show my love for the fist. We know you love the fist. Uh-huh. Then we have Electronimo.
    102:48
    Which is all spinner. Versus Cheetah. So Cheetah has no spinner. Those three spinners, gone. I mean, honestly, I don't shoot for the men. You don't go for two or three. You know, the only one is. That's true. So, I think still Cheetah. I still Cheetah. Yeah. Okay. Next round. So, we got, I think it was Stars versus Galaxy.
    103:16
    Stars. I'll say Stars. I'll say Galaxy, actually, on that one. Okay. So, what do we have next? Trident and Allie.
    103:28
    Allie. Yeah, but you don't really go for the spinner Allie that much. No, you don't really do. Trident was a barely one last one. I'll say Allie. Yep. Wildfire and Meteor.
    103:39
    Meteor. Meteor's got to beat Wildfire in any dimension. Sea Witch and Hot Hand. Again, Sea Witch you still basically look at the spinner, so it's not using much. And Hot Hand is not. Sea Witch you go for X's. X, X, X, X, X. Yep. So see which, I'd say. See which. We need another of these games with just no drop targets instead.
    104:01
    Big Game and Iron Maiden. Big Game. I think Maiden could actually be more fun if you're just going for the multi-ball. I never found Maiden fun. Yeah, but it's not really that fun. I just never found it fun. Yeah. Big Game. I think Big Game.
    104:15
    Dracula and Stargazer. Dracula's actually got, like, bonus and specials to go for. Yeah, Dracula has more stuff. Stargazer really suffers. Yeah, without the whole gimmick of all the spinners Dracula I might say Dracula, yeah Yep, you down as Dracula Wow, Stargazer really gets hurt without its three spinners Catacomb and Flight 2000 The multiball kills me on that game It's not fun You know what kills me is when Bruce is sitting across the room I'm not sitting across the room I'm standing and my ass hurts Oh, his ass Way too much information there Alright, yes, Flight 2000 Okay Then Quicksilver and Cheetah.
    104:56
    Mmm. That's an interesting one. Mmm. I know. I like drops more than stand-ups. I feel like Quicksilver needs a bonus collect.
    105:09
    Yeah, I'm going with Cheetah. Cheetah has the bonus collect. It just adds a bit more to it. Scott, get on that. I'll go with Cheetah.
    105:17
    All right. We're getting to the nitty-gritty here. So we got Stars. And Ali. Oof Still like stars with the drop target Targets around the drop targets When the drop target rules Yeah, that's what I'm saying Compared to just And you still have the stars At least got like the spelling The grades on the left bank And then like collecting it on the right And the bonus X I think everyone takes advantage of that right really a lot You know, just collect, collect, collect It's hard to do though I know But stars still has the stars It still has the 100k Yeah Ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding-a-ding. It's always a great time. I find actually trying to go for five stars to get that sort of annoying. I think it's the hardest thing to do. It's super hard to do, but it's like, oh, okay, I got four to five drain. Grind it, start again. Grind it? There's nothing grindy about stars. The balls last, like, ten seconds. Stars.
    106:15
    I'm going Allie, but I guess I lose. Yep, you lose. Meteor and Sea Witch. Oof. They both have tons of drop targets. They do. They both have upper flippers. Yeah. Meteor has more drop targets. Meteor. Sea Witch has the axe to make you move around. Nope. Meteor. We're going to make Zach choose this one. I'll say Sea Witch. I'll choose Meteor. Okay. It's got the lighting up the bonus. I think that wins it for me. Yeah. I like that part. It's got wows. It got wows. Sea Witch has a wow, too, doesn't it? Probably. Yeah, it does. Where is the wow in Sea Witch? I think it's the drain, isn't it? The drain? The drain, the outlanes. Oh, yeah. Actually, the inlanes, I think. I don't know. Like you can chat to them. We don't know. Oh, no. I haven't owned one in a while. You never really go for it. Yeah, you don't really go for it. All right, other side. Big game in Dracula.
    107:11
    I mean, I like the bingo cards. The bingo cards are fun. It's basically bingo cards versus bonus collect. I like bingo cards, but I like the bank up in Dracula at the top there. The meteor before meteor. Yeah.
    107:27
    Oh, this is hard. I'm going big game. I'll go Dracula. I guess we need to consider this as the original Dracula with the random 5X and not the fixed ROM. Yeah, you have to. You're talking original ROM for big game. Oh, that's right. I didn't think of that. I probably got to go big game then. Yeah, I'm used to playing yours. Yeah, I'm so used to the normal track.
    107:50
    All right, play 2000, Cheetah. Oh. Ooh. I don't think this is a hard one for me. No, Cheetah. It's still got to be Cheetah because you still have a third of the play field. It's not playable. Yeah. It's just for the lock shot. Our top four are Stars, Meteor, Big Game, and Cheetah. Wow. It really changed what we were going to pick. One weird contender in there that would have been beaten by Stargazer I don't know if any other run, but here we are. So stars versus a meteor.
    108:20
    A meteor has rockets. It has wows. But stars have star chasing. Multipliers. And star chasing. And drop targets for single and double bonus. Well, meteor has drop targets for up to 7x bonus. I know.
    108:38
    And the wow chasing. Yes. I'm still going stars. And rockets. I'll go meteor. I'm going meteor. Wow. Meteor wins that side. Big game and Cheetah. All right, our finals.
    108:55
    Meteor and Cheetah. Harry Williams versus Steve Kirk. Who will win? Cheetah. I really like Cheetah.
    109:05
    I mean, it's got, let's think here. Take the spinners out. We got the grid. But the grid actually lights up all the spinners that you can't hit. the whole middle third of the playfield was dead.
    109:18
    I'll say Meteor. It still doesn't actually change the play that much, what you usually do. I know. That's what I'm saying. Especially on stock ROMs, you just bonus back all day. Yeah.
    109:28
    Yeah, that's true. It's probably Meteor. So the winner of the non-spinner. Yes. Well, Bruce always picks stars. But in my world, yes, Meteor is the champ. and I believe Zach's world too. I might say Cheetah's the champ normally. Really? Once you have the spinners and the grid back in, like... So are you changing? Because you used to tell me that Meteor was the best classic spinner. On stock ROMs, I think Meteor's probably better. Oh! I think of all the improved ROMs out there for Cheetah, Cheetah takes the edge. Wow! Okay. And also, Meteor depends a lot on how juiced the spinner is. I think Cheetah doesn't matter how juiced the spinner is. It still works either way. Mine is, like, perfect. It's not as juiced as a lot of the ones I play, but I like it that way.
    110:18
    I think the shot is a little too tight. What shot? The spinner shot on Meteor. On Meteor? On mine it is. Yeah, I really do. On mine it is. It's hard to hit it solid. But I've played other ones where it's much easier. I love that it has the rubbers on both sides that just kill the ball. You have to actually hit it. I really like the way that works. But Cheetah, the right spinner, is even tighter. Yeah, but I think you can still get it up top. Yeah, you can still get it up top. I don't know why it spins better. I don't know why either. I don't understand some of this.
    110:49
    I feel like Meteor was too early in the Cheetah, in the Stern run, to really have the proper Stern spinner system. Plus, there's still, like, Type 1 flippers. Maybe Type 2 are a little better. Do they have different coils in the flippers? No, I don't think so. No, not at all. It's just a different plate and height for the flipper. When did they change that? Because their earlier games had a different coil, right? Like, Stars is not the same as Cheetah. Big game is when it changed. Wasn't big game after Meteor? No, not Type 1, Type 2. The coils. The coils, I don't know. No, I don't know either. I have to look at some manuals. Yeah, I have to look at manuals. Manual. Is that actually in the manual? Yeah. I don't think it is. No, you have to have that cool, the one I have that has the guy in the jacket with the sunglasses. He's got the stern jacket on. Yes. It has all of the, it goes through all the games and what they are for each game. You ever saw that one? It's like the coolest. It's one of the coolest parts catalog pictures I've seen. It's just some dude like, I'm fucking cool. I'm Stern. He's got the glasses on. I only have the 79 Stern parts catalog, not a later one. Yeah, this one has. It's like 80. This one has, yeah. It has everything up to like 81. So it's got like all the good ones in there. Oh, you can buy it from Marco for $30.
    112:07
    Uh-huh. I found it. It's on Pinball Wiki. There you go. They actually have a list of all the certain parts catalogs. It's like eight of them. Yes. That's crazy. Go figure, huh? Somebody actually doing their job. Making manuals. Looks like it was Adam from Saratoga that uploaded this. Thank you, Adam.
    112:28
    Oh, electronic pinball coils listed by game. Ah, flipper left and right. There we go. On page 53 out of 56, I've been scrolling through. So, Stars uses a 25500. Meteor uses a 25500. And Cheetah uses a 25475. A little hotter.
    112:51
    Yep, it's actually hotter. And Quicksilver 2 uses a hotter coil. There you go. We figured it out. Oh, wow. Galaxy uses a 25450. Even stronger. That's weird. Yeah. Harry William just wanted that power. I want that power on Harry Williams. Actually, that was the first one with a stronger coil. And then they backed it off after Magic for Cheetah. I wonder if it broke stuff. Like, you know, we've got to back off a little bit. Only Galaxy and Magic had the strongest coil. Oh. That's interesting. Interesting. Some more Classic Stern trivia for you folks on the Ultimate Podcast for Classic Stern Info.
    113:32
    Are we done? Are we? I think we are. Is there any more mail? There's no more mail. Well, the ball bag has been emptied. Except for the one we're saving for next time. We're saving for another time, yes. And we got repairs. You guys already talked about repairs. Yeah, a lot. And we're still dealing with... Oh, so I had to change the settings on Batman 66 because the motor error came up again. I put my second email out to Stern. Wait a minute, wait a minute. This is the one that was broke and broke, and then finally it's fixed, and now it's worked longer than it's ever worked correctly, and now you're saying it's broke again. Unfortunately, it's still erroring out the too many motor errors, but Lyman in his, I guess, forethought, you can change how many errors you have for your motors. You can change how many errors you have? Yeah, continuous errors or how many errors before it will disable the motor. Oh. So it was originally set for two continuous and five total. I changed it to five and ten. Let's see what happens. Oh, Jesus. So not really fixing it, just... I'm trying to fix it. We might have to get a board or two, but we'll see what happens next. So this is just like the never-ending. The never-ending retune. And Stern has not responded to me two times now. Uh-oh. You've got to love it. You guys better respond to the Bruce. Bruce is going to fuck you up. We have just thousands and thousands of listeners who will be pissed at you for not responding to Bruce. Remember that. Tens of. They're going to come after you. Tens of listeners.
    115:02
    They're going to all boycott you. Yes. Sales against King Kong are done now. I'm not going to buy another Stern for at least two months now. I'm not going to buy another Stern. I'm only going to buy you Sterns now.
    115:15
    Yes. You don't get your money from me. You get your money from somebody else. Yeah, so when do we think Kong is coming out? Soon? I mean, what's the usual? I never know what the cadences are. April. April or May, probably. Before, in middle April. You think middle April? Bruce is staying middle of April. I mean, the easy thing would be like right after TPF and whenever people leave there to just start teasing it. Yeah, that's what they did. Remember they did that with, what was it, Black Knight Sword of Rage? Yes. It was at TPF, the first trailer, the super cool trailer where I was really psyched about the game, the original one. Like, he's back, the Black Knight, and you hear the laugh at the end.
    115:56
    It's like, yeah. Did you guys see the post I put on the Slamtail podcast today or a couple days ago? You mean our Facebook page? Yeah, our Facebook page. Yeah, what did you put on there? About we need some shirts running, Bruce, and the one I put up there was Debbie Does Dallas. Oh, God.
    116:12
    It actually looks like the little Debbie. It says Debbie Does Dallas. Please, that's Virgin Ears. He's never watched a porno, so he wouldn't know about Debbie Does Dallas. Well, he certainly wouldn't know about that one. Yeah, it's pretty old. Oh, retro porn. Retro, the best guy. I only fapped VHS.
    116:37
    My porn had to be on Laserdisc back then. Laserdisc. Or I wasn't watching it. Oh, God. Did they even have that? Yes, they did. Oh, they did? They did. Oh, my God. I bet you there's somewhere there's a Discord where people are arguing about quality of the porn on Laserdisc compared to the VHS. I guarantee you. They had video poker games with Laserdisc. I have two of those Laserdiscs. Oh, yeah, I got you. I have two of those discs. And don't forget the classic Laserdisc games like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace. Defender of Justice.
    117:10
    Space. Ace. Yes. Oh, God. Is that the Space Hunt game? Yes. Space. Ace. Oh, God. Are we done? Yes, I think we're done. This has been episode 247.
    117:28
    He's only got five hours to edit and release this, Bruce. Yeah, at least five or six hours. Yes. I know. No time to shit. That's a new Bond movie. No time to shit.
    117:40
    This part of the evil. He's going to destroy all toilets in the world. No time to shit. That's his big plot of the villain. All the toilets will become useless, and it won't flush. Bond uses his superior physique to hold it in for a little bit longer. After all the agents fall.
    117:59
    Their pants full of shit. Can the bidet clean it? No, it cannot. No time for shit. Got the fart pass. No, that's a shit. Okay, right before we end, since we're on that, what's everyone's favorite Bond movie?
    118:18
    Since I know Zach has actually seen them. Mine's easy. Mine will always be Goldfinger. Mine is Goldfinger or Moonraker because I'm a big space guy. Moonraker, one of the worst ones ever. No, I like this. I like that they had some spaceships back then. Yeah. For those at home, the whole plot of that is the main bad guy wants to, what, poison the world so everyone dies except all the people he has in space. Yeah, that's what's wrong with that. That is so stupid.
    118:46
    I expect you to die for my gold instead. I used to think that Goldfinger was one of the best ones, but if you watch it, it was not as strong as I remembered it being. Okay. Especially the girl.
    118:59
    Which one? What her stupid name was. Oh, Pussy Galore? Yeah. She sucked. She is pretty bad. She is actually one of the worst. One of the worst Bond girls. Basically ruined the whole movie. Wow. Poor Otter Blackman. So what else is the next one? The first Roger Moore one. Live and Let Die. Yeah, because they have AMC cars in it. I'm a big AMC car nut. Jesus Christ. I was fairly pleasantly surprised by Diamonds Are Forever. So you like comedic Bond. I don't know if I actually think it's good, but it was such a change of pace that it was really refreshing after watching the previous six ones. I don't mind His Majesty. I really don't. Her Majesty's Secret Service. I think that's actually the truest Bond for the books. A lot of people say it's one of the best Bonds. It's actually truest to the books. But it doesn't have the happiest ending. That's the problem. No, and that's what Bond movie books are usually.
    119:50
    He doesn't always get the girl at the end. He suffered. But Diamonds are forever. I do like the gay assassin guys. I thought that was a great concept. There was a lot of good concepts in that. Mr. Wint and Mr. – what were their names? Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd. Ah, yes. If you first don't succeed, Mr. Wint, try, try again, Mr. Kidd. Yes. I also just always enjoyed GoldenEye. It's been a while since I've rewatched it. GoldenEye's good. Yeah, GoldenEye was pretty good. Of the later things, that's probably the best one. Yes. Pierce Brosnan, my man, Remington Steele. And honestly, the very first one was much better than I thought. Oh, Dr. No? Oh, Dr. No is terrible. No, it's not. Oh, come on. That is so drawn out in the beginning. It really is. Like, here, we're in a beautiful Bahamas. Like, it was really, like, actually, like, spy stuff going on. No, it really wasn't spy stuff for the first 30 minutes. Then they got interested. It's got the tarantula. Yeah, it doesn't do it for me. Like, the fake driver shows up, but they don't even, like, tell you. The end, though, when he finds her dead, and then they're trying to kill him in the hotel. It's like, oh, cheesy. It's really cheesy. and the karate judo chops were totally cheesy. Oh, it's terrible. That's a movie from like the 60s. Oh, it's terrible fights. From 1962, Bruce. What do you want? Terrible fight sequences. Like, he got better later on. I think the fight sequences are not a good part of Bond to begin with, so the fact that that was good. The judo chops were really bad. It was more fighty and less fighty. Okay, the Ultra Andress debut, though. Come on. That's good in any era. Yeah, I'm just not impressed. Ultra Andress, the Bond girl.
    121:23
    I can't remember her name is in that movie. Yeah, I don't remember either. What was her name? Honey Driver or something like that? Hmm. I don't know. Come on, the one on the beach. I know. The one with him for the whole left part of the movie. Oh, the one that he just... That was stupid. Speaking of just, like, stupid Bond girls. Honey Rider. Honey Rider, okay. Alyssa Andres. Yeah, ultra Andres. Stupid, fiery Andres.
    121:48
    That's when, like, every Bond girl was dubbed in, like, all those early movies. She was dubbed. The one in For Much Little Love was dubbed. The one in Thunderball was dubbed. Yeah.
    122:00
    Thunderball, probably the worst of the original Bond movies. Oh, totally. Totally agree. I never like underwater fight scenes. It just doesn't work. It may fall in on an awful idea. And the music with that, it's like, oh, it's so douchey.
    122:16
    As soon as the title sequence ended, it just went downhill. Yes, Thunderball. Tom Jones killed it there. God, that last note is insane. Okay, we've gone totally off the rails here. It has nothing to do with pinball. It does. Well, actually, there's a James Bond pinball machine. There's two. We only talked about pinball bombs, too. Yes, that's true. The original ones. Oh, and GoldenEye, because there's the GoldenEye. I like GoldenEye. Yes, there is. I always liked that game. I would like to get a GoldenEye pinball, too. That game needs a new rule set, but it's still good. It's got a lot of cool stuff. It's got all that stuff. The pin shot's my favorite thing.
    122:54
    Oh! Yes, Mr. the Bond. Okay. So, yes, episode 247. Say hi to all the people in our cluster bunk, et cetera. Hi, Zach. Zach is here. Hi, Steve. Hi, Jeff Teolis. Hi, boys. Hello, girls. Hello, everyone. Be sure to watch the D-Jenny's. The Jenny's tonight. Don't forget to sign up for Stomp. Oh, yeah. Stomp at 6 p.m. tonight. 6 p.m. tonight, which will not be tonight when this releases because it probably won't release at the beginning of the week. Oh, you're doing it right now. That's what you're doing right now. No, I'm not. No editing. No, I'm leaving after here, and I'm going to Guptill's Ice Cream, which is opening today.
    123:32
    Our website is www.slamtiltpodcast.com. That's www.slamtiltpodcast.com. Check us out. Okay, until next time, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Brian Gailey.
    123:49
    All my life, can you fly? Can you fly? All my life, all my life You can donate if you try All my life, all my life Guarantee to keep you alive We'll be right back. Oh, my.
    124:52
    Oh, my. Oh, my ass is going to hurt today. Oh, wow. Wow, way too much information. Why is that, Bruce? Because I'm on a fucking school. Okay. Because my chair is stuck at RPC.
    125:31
    And what the fuck is Portal? It's a multiball in Tron. No, no, no. What is Portal? It's so popular they're making a whole pin about that one video mode. Yes.